Sahara bundles Internet with PCs

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2007

Sahara Computers now offers immediate Internet services and connectivity with every PC or notebook it sells.

The company joins Incredible Connection, Rectron, Mercer, MWeb and other PC suppliers and Internet service providers (ISPs) that bundle PCs with Internet access.

Sahara's Internet initiative, which is aimed at end-users, offers various Internet access options and features an online organiser, virus and junk mail scanning on all e-mail, the company says.

Packages include premium analogue 56K dial-up, for R89 per month, or premium digital 64K ISDN dial-up, for R99 per month.

Gary Naidoo, deputy MD of Sahara, says the inclusion of online communication facilities, such as access to the Internet and e-mail in the sale of PC infrastructure, represents a natural step forward in the PC market.

Revenue stream

MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller says, with broadband looking to grow significantly over the next decade, more companies will explore Internet access provisioning as a potential revenue stream.

"Sahara's Internet offerings are not very aggressively priced and they may rely on their established hardware business to push their products rather than trying to compete on value in the marketplace," he says.

He adds Sahara's offerings are also all reliant on a fixed-line (ADSL, ISDN, dialup), which make the company a less comprehensive ISP than competitors such MWeb, DataPro and Nashua Mobile.

These three ISPs resell a wide range of wired and wireless Internet access services from Telkom, MTN, Vodacom and iBurst, he says.

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says as Sahara does not have a dominant position in the market, the new offering is unlikely to have a great impact in the Internet market in the short-term.