Novell South Africa has announced with immediate effect, the appointment of 12-year Novell veteran, Peter Hunter as regional manager for its Cape Town office.
Hunter`s background is strongly grounded in secure identity management (SIM), with five years` experience at Novell Australia, heading up the company`s SIM business in the Asia Pacific region.
"Besides the worldwide potential for Linux and open source, there is a massive requirement for Novell`s secure identity management solutions in the Cape market," Hunter says.
"We feel extremely positive about having someone of Peter`s calibre heading up our Cape Town office," says Stafford Masie, managing director of Novell South Africa. "Peter`s international exposure is an invaluable asset and we look forward to our customers in the Cape benefiting from the customer-focused approach to business and deep understanding of Novell technologies he brings to the table.
"So far, we`ve seen a healthy interest from both new and old Novell customers in these two areas. While the interest in open source stems from a need for cost reduction and increased flexibility, secure identity management allows for greater control and ease of management, something that most organisations see as a priority today," he explains.
Despite the interest in SIM from the Cape market, Hunter says there has been a lack of education and vendor focus around the benefits enterprises can derive by using this solution. "As a leader in the SIM market, with over 5 000 companies worldwide using Novell`s SIM solution, we believe we can more than adequately bridge this gap," Hunter continues.
"But the Cape market is a very different animal. Companies in Cape Town take your value proposition, existing relationships, reputation and trust into account, rather than simply focusing on pure value proposition.
"This is the reason one of our main objectives for the coming year will be to secure key-lighthouse references in the Linux and open source space, in order to prove that Linux solutions are ready for the enterprise. Our primary objective will, however, be to ensure our existing customers are well cared for and that they are made aware of the new solutions Novell is bringing to market in both the SIM and Linux space," Hunter says.
The third objective is to meet its revenue targets in 2005, which have undergone a 25% increase on the 2004 target.
"Outside of pure business, what is of paramount importance to us is putting something back into the region in terms of social responsibility and meaningful transformation. We are putting efforts in place to re-invest a portion of our revenue from the Cape region into Novell`s bursary programme. These funds would be used for the training and certification of local Linux talent, which would be placed in key positions in the market," Hunter concludes.
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