Altech, which has recently been bought by parent company Altron, and Huawei have created a new business entity to drive future growth initiatives in the enterprise market.
The new entity will be branded as Altech Collab and will reside within Altech's new business development division. Altech last year signed a long-term value-added partner agreement with Huawei.
Under the agreement, Altech provides Huawei Enterprise products and services to customers and offers post-sales professional services and support. The agreement covers a number of countries, including SA, Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Huawei Enterprise offers solutions for vertical industry and enterprise customers, including government and public sectors, transportation and logistics, power grids, energy, healthcare, and finance.
Its offerings include ICT solutions such as cloud services, unified communications and transmission solutions, network and application security services, data centre networking and storage solutions and ICT infrastructure services.
Another component of the partnership is Altech's ability to distribute Huawei devices, such as smartphones and tablets, through its existing Altech Autopage Cellular national distribution network.
"This new business entity reflects our commitment to both Huawei and our enterprise customers in that we have created a unit that is dedicated to providing Huawei Enterprise products to our customers, while at the same time ensuring our customers receive world-class support and service from a dedicated team of professionals," says Tim Ellis, Altech's group executive for business development.
In a statement, the companies say there was a need to create a business entity focused on providing IT solutions and services to enterprise customers. The entity was created on the back of the agreement and as a result of Altech's future growth plans.
Minority shareholders in Altech were recently bought out in a R1.8 billion deal offered by Altron.
Altron aims to remove overlaps between Bytes and Altech, build on its convergence strategy, and provide investors with a single entry point.
Since 2001, Altron has brought partly-owned subsidiaries back into the fold, reducing the amount of companies from 10 to two.
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