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NetApp appoints Bekker as SA, SADC country manager

Kgaogelo Letsebe
By Kgaogelo Letsebe, Portals journalist
Johannesburg, 23 Jun 2017
Morne Bekker, Net App South African country manager and SADC district manager.
Morne Bekker, Net App South African country manager and SADC district manager.

Morne Bekker has been appointed as South African country manager and district manager for the SADC region at NetApp.

NetApp, a global data management and cloud storage solutions provider, announced the appointment yesterday, adding it is an indication of NetApp's presence in the region.

"Our recent acquisition of SolidFire, and a unique portfolio, including the most comprehensive enterprise flash storage offering in the business, places us in a distinctive market position. We therefore require the right leadership as demonstrated by Morne, to execute strategy, develop long-standing industry relationships and bring in new prospects," says Fadi Kanafani, regional director Middle East and Africa.

In early 2016, NetApp acquired SolidFire, a Colorado-based maker of data storage hardware for cloud-mined data centres, for $870 million in cash.

Bekker will be responsible for all of NetApp's business across the Southern African region. His responsibilities will include the development and execution of sales and channel strategies, expanding the customer base, local skills development and enhancing the partner and alliances ecosystem.

Speaking on the appointment, Bekker says his professional journey equipped him with the necessary knowledge on the evolution of enterprise storage.

"Traditionally, large South African enterprises have been cautious when adopting the cloud. Reasons for this cloud lag have included long-standing legacy systems and confusion around data sovereignty. This mindset is slowly starting to shift as organisations start to pursue a hybrid cloud strategy, retaining a significant amount of storage capacity on-premises for reasons of performance, security, regulatory and compliance," emphasises Bekker.

Bekker holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in internal auditing from the University of Pretoria and has studied towards a higher diploma in computer auditing from the University of the Witwatersrand.

He previously held sales manager positions at Internet Solutions, Datacentrix and Hewlett Packard, across various industries, including financial services, manufacturing, public sector, utilities and telecoms.

Bekker will fill the position with immediate effect.

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