An education and training centre specialising in the training of Storage Management Software was opened today at Mutual Place in Rivonia by Maxtec Peripherals, a dominant player in the storage system market in South Africa.
Training courses will run at least once a month with full demonstration. One of the principle courses which will be run is the one-week, IBM ADSM Storage Management software course; however a complete range of courses on data storage covering hardware and software for various platforms and packages will be available.
Jean-Marie Mathiot, general manager of IBM Storage Systems Division - EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), who is visiting Maxtech`s top South African IBM clients this week and guest speaker at the launch of the new training centre, said that IBM foresees the value of the storage market to double from $US 40 billion this year to $US 80 billion in two years time. "IBM has already committed some US$ 2.4 billion to the development of products to cater for this market, and in future will continue to invest a further US$1 billion per annum to research and development", states Mathoit.
After a long-standing relationship with IBM, being the only South African distributor of the entire range of IBM mid-range to high-end storage solutions; IBM South Africa has now appointed Maxtec as its sole data storage training and education specialist in South Africa for their storage products and software which has been adopted by major banks and insurance institutions.
Maxtec will handle all of IBM SA`s internal and reseller channels as well as their end-user training related to their storage management software product.
Hardware was the core of the Maxtec business and Maxtec peripherals was established as a provider of low-end and storage products, but the company has since evolved into a dominant force in the mid to high-end storage solutions market in South Africa, receiving the highest accreditation from its business partners in the process.
The Maxtec Peripherals business is divided into two distinct products, namely an IBM product set and a general product set.
"The storage solutions that Maxtec provides have undergone a significant transformation over the last few years. Storage is no longer a stand-alone solution, but requires skilled technicians and detailed knowledge of operating platforms and systems integration. This is more prevalent on the software side of storage management because of the complexity of software requirements. Through our in-depth training of these necessary skills, users will be able to implement what they have learnt immediately and effectively, putting theory into practice," says Maxtec Ltd managing director, George Talbot.
Remote support is also provided to clients using the Storage Management Systems. Even companies such Datavia which is the data-arm of Transnet, and Commercial Union are outsourcing support to experts such as Maxtec. The access to skills is therefore an attractive investment.
"With the amount of time and resources aimed at the training of staff to provide a value added service to the customer; and more importantly, to professionally implement, integrate, support and maintain the software throughout the enterprise on an ongoing basis; storage management support is a vast growing service for Maxtec. It is our firm objective that this service side of the business should comprise of 45% of our turnover within 18 months."
Advancements in technology have ensured an unprecedented increase in requirements for data storage. All indications are that this trend is set to continue for the foreseeable future. Maxtec recognises this and is well positioned to take advantage of it.
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