Joint venture Huawei Symantec has entered the South African market.
Huawei Symantec vice-president of international sales and finance, Kevin Taylor, says it is good timing for the company to enter the market due to rising Chinese investment in SA as well as the business demand for solutions which manage and secure high information volumes.
“Information is the new currency of the 21st century. We saw the information explosion coming for a long time, but perhaps without realising the scale of it. We can't escape the fact that information is growing out of control and this trend isn't going to be reversed any time soon,” says Taylor.
He pointed to a 2009 report compiled by research firm Computing Science, which says there will be more devices connected to the Internet than there are people by 2020.
Adding to the challenge, business demands have changed post-recession, he says. All organisations have the same demands, whether it's an enterprise or small company.
“Business wants the IT experience to be easy, flexible and at a lower cost. This is a very difficult requirement for many IT vendors to meet,” he notes.
“The amount of investment into SA from Chinese government and organisations is significant and we expect this to increase,” says Taylor. There's a lot of synergy between SA and China and Chinese vendors are willing to work with the local channel.
“Wall Street Journal's asset management report says China is poised to overtake the US as the world's largest manufacturer by 2014. This shows the unassailable rise of Chinese manufacturing power.”
According to Huawei Symantec, the company has achieved continued growth of 50% since its establishment in 2008.
Edmont Rao, CEO of Huawei Symantec SA, says: “According to reports, SA is expected to grow by 7.5% this year. Following the growth in the country, it is an exciting time for Huawei Symantec to be investing its business in SA.”
The company has rolled out HS Care, a call centre to provide support for channel partners and customers around storage and server security products, Rao reveals. Huawei Symantec has appointed Mustek and Drive Control Corporation as the first two local channel partners to distribute its products.
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