New force in the IT arena, arivia.kom has been awarded two major cross-border contracts - Botswana and Zambia - worth almost R34 million.
In addition, the company is also enjoying success within the country and is about to conclude a seven-year contract with Affinity Logic, an IT company within the Wooltru Group.
These contracts are among the first major contracts to be won by the company since arivia.kom was formed as a result of the merger of Eskom ITS, Datavia and Ariel Technologies.
The first contract involves establishing stage one of phase two of an IT infrastructure maintenance and support contract including networks for the Botswana Ministry of Agriculture. The contract for phase two is valued at R30 million.
The contract, which will run for two years, requires 1 024 network points to be installed at 47 sites. In all, 742 users will be trained in PC usage and supplied with new PCs. Windows 2000 will be rolled out to 250 existing users and MS Exchange will be installed for all users. Both electronic fax and Web site facilities will be provided. A total of 79 servers will be supplied to meet infrastructure needs.
Says Zeph Serepo, arivia.kom managing executive: Infrastructure Business: "The contract is the culmination of 18 months of intensive work that included visits to sites situated in difficult to reach terrain.
"An interesting feature of this contract is that a ex-Ariel and ex-Datavia team worked together on this project prior to the formation of arivia.kom, proof of the strong synergies and the ability of staff of the three entities to work together. "
The second major contract is a deal worth R2.84 million (US$349 000) to provide enhancements and systems to the Public Service Pension Fund in Zambia. Enhancements will be made to the payroll, human resources and financial systems (including stores and purchasing).
A new system will be established to manage the Public Services pension payments for 30 000 pensioners. The contract will run for six months.
Locally, arivia.kom is about to conclude a seven-year contract with Affinity Logic, an IT company within the Wooltru Group that services one of the largest retail groups in the country, namely Massmart (encompassing Makro, Dion and Game). This initial contract valued at R6 million requires arivia.kom to host 33 of Affinity Logic`s servers.
Says Maphum Nxumalo, arivia.kom new business development executive: "This contract with Affinity Logic is aligned to our infrastructure business strategy to outsource our extensive hosting capability. We envisage that this part of our business will grow in leaps and bounds."
Share
Editorial contacts