Submarine cable operator, Seacom says it is encouraged by the uptake of the Pamoja Cloud Service by solution integrators and ISPs in Africa.
Pamoja Cloud Services, Seacom's premier cloud offering in the marketplace for Africa, was unveiled in the region in April last year, providing wholesale cloud computing services via ICT companies and other service providers.
According to the company, Pamoja's mission is to establish a cloud services marketplace for SME solutions in Africa. Adoption is currently largely centred on entry-level services such as e-mail, collaboration and security, and will evolve to business services such as ERP, CRM, HR and accounting, it adds.
Claire Kaguara, Pamoja Cloud Services regional channel manager, says the services are built around the requirements of SMEs in Africa. The Pamoja business model relies on channel partners to resell the services to SME customers, and there is tremendous interest from prospective resellers across East Africa, she explains.
"Pamoja's Cloud Services business model is built on the growing demand for information technology as a service, from small and medium-sized enterprises, coupled with the need for service providers to increase the value of their existing offerings and grow brand revenue," says Kaguara.
"Pamoja represents Africa as a single service partner, enabling economies of scale to both content owners and the small and medium-sized enterprise markets in Africa. This is possible because Pamoja leverages Seacom's existing network, ensuring that the SME market in Africa is served with cost-effective cloud services that eliminate capex costs."
Kaguara says that, with cloud, the SME market does not need to purchase any hardware to utilise the services, which, therefore, eliminates huge capital requirements, especially for start-ups. SMEs that already have existing equipment will not be required to upgrade or renew lease agreements, as even the skills required to do this are accessible via cloud.
Pamoja is initially investing in cloud computing infrastructure in SA and Kenya. These facilities will improve access to the cloud services and address the issues around the location of confidential and sensitive data and service latency, Seacom says.
The cloud infrastructure in SA will allow Pamoja to service the southern African market, while the Kenya-based platform will service the East African region.
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