Johannesburg, 08 Aug 2014
Leading communications services provider in South Africa, Telkom announced today that it has signed an agreement with Cisco to become the first Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) strategic partner in South Africa.
Cisco HCS offers highly secure collaboration solutions for public, private, and hybrid clouds from partners delivering Cisco Powered cloud services. Telkom customers in South Africa will experience the flexibility of cloud-based collaboration and as a result be able to more quickly and seamlessly deploy applications to deliver greater collaboration productivity.
Whereas historically organisations shied away from hosted services due to a perceived lack of security and control, Cisco HCS will provide its customers with carrier-grade security and manageability and much more. It offers collaborative technologies delivered as highly secure and reliable cloud services which include voice and video as a service; instant messaging and presence as a service, Web conferencing as a service; and mobility as a service.
Highlights/key facts:
* Utilising cloud-based unified communication and collaboration; customers will be able to quickly roll out collaborative technologies to power new ways of working and facilitate business success hence enabling them to free their IT resources to focus on strategic business priorities.
* Powered cloud services based on Cisco validated designs will allow our customers to maintain integrity and privacy to protect their business, employees, and customers:
* Mobility as a Service - One number to dial as well as the capability to redirect incoming IP calls to designated phones, move calls between Cisco desktop and mobile phones, create personalised access lists, and give access to all corporate call features from mobile phones.
* Web conferencing as a service - enabling customers to meet and manage meetings and projects over the Web in real time, to present, share, or collaborate from anywhere, anytime, on any device.
* Instant messaging and presence as a service - customers will enjoy improved collaboration with a simple click to begin an IM session, initiate a phone call, or easily start a video conferencing call.
* Voicemail and integrated messaging as a service - customers will be able to deliver voicemail, integrated messaging, or simply voicemail, and access messages from an IP phone, mobile phone or desktop client.
* Voice and video as a service - offering simplified collaboration with a unified architecture that delivers industry-leading voice and video capabilities as a service.
* Cisco HCS will offer our customers the opportunity to pay only for what they need with a simple monthly subscription. This will help them to align with their fast-changing business needs by quickly enabling them to scale to add or remove users and applications with ease as well as reduce management complexity, retain visibility and control, and have the assurance that application services remain available so business continues.
"As more devices and people in South Africa are connected on the network, service providers like us will need to continue to innovate, diversify and transform to meet the demands of our customers. Telkom has an established, longstanding strategic partnership with Cisco and we are delighted to be expanding our portfolio with Cisco's Hosted Collaboration Solution which takes our product offering into the collaboration market for the first time. We will start by providing HCS to our customers in South Africa but we do have plans to also eventually roll it out through our partner network to other countries in Africa where we have coverage. Our strategic collaboration with Cisco is designed to achieve this goal as well as help provide our growing portfolio of customers the latest technology solutions which will serve their ever-changing needs," said Johann Henning, Managing Director of Telkom Business.
Alpheus Mangale, Managing Director for Cisco in South Africa, said: "We are privileged that Telkom has chosen Cisco's Hosted Collaboration Solution to help develop this previously un-tapped market opportunity for its customers in South Africa. Cisco's key objective is to work with leading service providers to help them to focus on greater innovation in order to take full advantage of the growth opportunities with the telecoms sector in South Africa as well as the African continent as a whole. Our shared goal has always been to better serve customers as well as to help to continue to build profitable businesses. As the needs of its customers change, Telkom will be able to expand its capabilities accordingly to stay ahead in an environment of increasing competition."
Links/URL:
For more details about the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution visit:
http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/hcs/index.html
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