Acronyms come and acronyms go, perhaps in the IT industry more than any other. However, two acronyms that are in South Africa to stay are AST and ASA.
AST is the acronym for Advanced Software Technologies, who have become one of the leading suppliers to Southern Africa of sales and support of Enterprise Systems management products, end-to-end IS security solutions, output and print management and IT education. In the last eighteen months, AST has become a major force in the Southern African IT industry.
ASA stands for Application Service Assurance, both a registered trademark and the company credo of BMC Software, one of AST`s major international suppliers. A credo that AST subscribes to as well, with the emphasis on service. ASA virtually guarantees that enterprise-level applications will always be available, will always perform to their peak performance and can be easily recovered in the event of a disaster.
"I know it is very easy to be glib when talking about service," says Frank Gaylard, GM of AST Data and Application Management Solutions. "One hears it so often from companies who merely use the word as a marketing tool, with little or no intention of following through with it once the sale has been made, that it has unfortunately become a tired clich'.
"As sole distributor of BMC`s world-class products in Southern Africa, we can guarantee our growing new customer base a level of availability and reliability from their enterprise level applications that they possibly never even knew existed. Of course our old customers are already used to enjoying this level of service and they sleep more peacefully at night as a result."
Strong words indeed, however it seems as though public perception seems to back up Gaylard`s claims. AST listed in September this year, and their shares are climbing steadily in spite of the recent negative Market trends.
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