JSE-listed I-Fusion Group has been awarded the tender to license and upgrade the Pretoria City Council`s NovellNetware networking environment, in a deal worth an initial R2.3million. Only a portion of the tender, worth a potential R6 million, has been awarded thus far.
I-Fusion won the deal because of its extensive Novell Netware expertise, and because its bid was extremely price competitive, according to Robby van der Zwan, chief engineer, Technical Information Services, Pretoria City Council.
"We have excellent Novell Netware skills, including those in the critical area of Netware Directory Services (NDS) deployment," says Andre Potgieter, sales manager of I-Fusion Networks in Pretoria.
The Pretoria City Council is basically replacing the networking software lost in the fire at its Munitoria Building in 1997, and is taking the opportunity to upgrade and introduce NDS at the same time.
"We will run NDS on Microsoft NT, giving us more control over our network, and consuming less management resources," says van der Zwan. "At the same time, it will ensure standardisation within the Council. Currently there are a number of different versions of the software running on different platforms."
I-Fusion`s contract with the Pretoria City Council includes ongoing assistance on a project basis, the implementation of Netware licences, the upgrade of the Netware environment, and Y2K compliance.
Reinforcing I-Fusion`s ability in this area is its recent accreditation as a Novell Business Expert Partner (BEP), one of only18 in the country. Requirements for Novell BEP status are strict. The company must have a minimum of two Certified Novell Engineers, one Master Certified Novell Engineer and two Certified Novell Salespeople. Of the engineers, two must be Netware5 certified, and one Groupwise certified.
I-Fusion`s accreditation reflects the Group`s stated objective of tying up business partnerships with key vendors in the industry, including 3Com, IBM and Cisco, to be able to offer customers best-of-breed solutions that meet their specific requirements.
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