Novell South Africa has announced the successful conclusion of one of its most significant partnership agreements to date, accrediting Business Connexion as a platinum partner for the Novell identity management portfolio of solutions.
Novell Managing Director Stafford Masie says the new relationship is a particular significant event for Novell.
"Through 2004 we focused on re-establishing our presence in the South African market and building a pipeline of healthy business opportunities. With that stage in our lifecycle complete, we have now begun focusing on our ability to execute and deliver on various fronts.
"To ensure focus is maintained and our partner strategy is carefully executed, we have been very selective about whom we partner with. Not only does this new partnership with Business Connexion show Novell`s commitment to continually maturing and evolving its partner strategy, but it also goes a long way towards ensuring a high level of competence exists in the channel, a competence that allows for the proper delivery of Novell`s world-class technologies to take place," Masie continues.
"Together with Business Connexion, what the local market now has is an end-to-end world class identity management solutions structure that customers can engage with, in full-confidence, ensuring true value realisation and cost reduction," Masie continues.
Brian Tarr, Managing Executive of Business Connexion`s Networks division, explains the background to the signing of its partnership agreement with Novell. "During the course of last year, Business Connexion identified the identity management space as one that demands a high area of expertise, one that is showing a healthy growth margin and, as such, one that Business Connexion could play strongly in. The decision was thus made, to build a core competency within the company to provide solutions in this space and at the same time, seek out technology partners for this new solution offering."
During the latter part of this investigation, namely the selection of a technology partner, Tarr says Novell was identified as a strong player in the identity management space.
"Both the market and analysts like Gartner seem unanimous in the opinion that Novell is the clear leader in the identity management market, featuring most prominently in Gartner`s `magic quadrant`," Tarr continues. "That is important to our clients."
Tarr says going forward Business Connexion is enthusiastic about its new relationship with Novell. "In the near term, we will be heavily focused on providing cost-effective and cost-reducing solutions to our customers in the identity management market. "
"We are absolutely delighted by the current and future prospects this new relationship holds in store for Novell and Business Connexion," Masie adds.
"With Novell`s strong focus on alleviating pain in customers` organisations, through the implementation of identity management solutions that give customers a better handle on their operations and result in an overall reduction in IT running costs, we believe there is much Business Connexion and Novell can do for the local market.
"We look forward to a long, deep and fruitful partnership," Masie concludes.
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Novell, Inc (Nasdaq: NOVL) is a leading provider of infrastructure software and services to over 50 000 customers in 43 countries. With more than 20 years of experience in data centre, workgroup and desktop solutions, Novell`s 6 000 employees, 5 000 partners and support centres around the world are meeting customer requirements for identity-driven computing and Linux solutions. By providing enterprise-class software and support for commercial and open source software, Novell delivers increased operating flexibility and choice at a lower total cost of ownership. More information about Novell can be found at http://www.novell.com.
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