In line with the government`s stated mission to move away from spending money on international software licences, premier Internet service provider (ISP), DataPro, has announced a new solution that will give government departments and local councils the ability to satisfy their overall Internet connectivity requirements.
Douglas Reed, MD of DataPro, said the launch of the new government Internet solution is aimed at providing local and regional government departments with a cost-effective solution designed to meet their specific needs. "Rather than spending billions of rands on international software licences, we have designed this solution to utilise locally developed and open source software."
In a recent speech at the opening of the e-Africa Workshop at Caesers in Gauteng, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the public service and administration minister, said Africa should investigate how to better use the opportunities presented by the emergence of open source software to drive down the costs of software within the ICT sector for the government.
Commenting further, Reed said this comment is a sentiment that the industry should take note of. "We certainly agree with this standpoint and this is one of the reasons for the launch of our solution for the government."
The government solution is a software bundling that offers an e-mail solution, e-mail virus protection as well as a firewall and network intrusion detection. The software bundling is supplied together with a server that hosts the different software packages as well as the necessary hardware to implement the Internet connectivity solution.
"In an effort to reduce the IT expenses of government departments, we have restricted the international component of the bandwidth. This makes the solution more affordable. Limiting the international bandwidth is a cost saving practice as most local municipalities, for instance, mainly make use of local bandwidth.
"There is no capital outlay on the part of the government. We will offer the entire solution, from the router to the Internet connection."
Reed also confirmed that DataPro is actively involving itself with black empowered computer resellers to assist with the selling and managing of the company`s various value-added Internet services, including its new government-focused Internet solution.
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