The AST Group, one of the country`s largest providers of development and integration services for the Microsoft platform, was awarded Microsoft`s `Gold Partner of the Year` at the Microsoft Partner summit held recently at Sun City.
"Microsoft Gold Certified Partners have achieved the highest possible level of certification that Microsoft offers and as such have proved their skill and ability to deliver solutions that exceed customer expectations," explains Gordon Frazer, Managing Director, Microsoft South Africa. "The Gold Partner of the Year Award recognises one of these best-of-breed partners for their outstanding strategic value, dedicated skills enhancement, revenue impact and especially the business value that they deliver to customers."
"We have a strong commitment to the Microsoft platform and deliver customised development solutions to provide our customers with a competitive advantage in the market," explains Pieter Bouwer, Executive Director of the AST Group. "AST sees this prestigious award as recognition of constant effort in achieving tangible business benefits for our customers through the deployment of workable solutions using the Microsoft platform.
"We have clearly demonstrated that we not only have the capacity, but also the commitment and investment to develop the intimate knowledge of Microsoft technology solutions necessary to drive the functionality and reliability essential to our customers," adds Bouwer.
The three AST business units that currently have Microsoft Gold Certification include AST Microsoft Solutions for E-Commerce Solutions, AST Distributed Technology Services (DTS) for Enterprise Systems and AST IT Consulting for Business Intelligence.
AST Microsoft Solutions has been instrumental in delivering large-scale .Net applications to corporate customers with a recent example being the automation of manual forms within Eskom using .Net and the K2.NET workflow tools.
AST DTS has delivered large-scale enterprise deployments of Active Directory and Exchange 2000 to corporate customers in the manufacturing, financial services and government sectors, which was one of the largest Active Directory Microsoft deployments in a government department.
AST has also been involved in several Joint Development Programmes (JDPs) with Microsoft, the most recent being the Microsoft Exchange 2003 JDP at Iscor.
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AST`s intellectual capacity, its business model and strong customer base form the foundation for the group`s integrated services solutions business. Ideally positioned as a leading technology solutions company and focused on selected industries, AST unlocks substantial value for its customers. The AST Group - a trustworthy and innovative ICT company.
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