Quintica kicks off managed services portfolio in Kenya

Stepping up its business activities in the East African country of Kenya, the Quintica Group has introduced the first of what it intends to be a comprehensive range of managed ICT services targeted at businesses in this burgeoning economy. One of company's initial offering is a hosted Microsoft Exchange communication platform, with many more services planned for the near future.

Quintica is known in Africa and the Middle East for its expertise in best practice information technology service management and corporate governance, fundamental to the provision of high performance managed services.

According to Quintica Chief Executive officer, Charles Osburn, the company began planning and developing a portfolio of ICT-based services in the middle of 2008.

“The core premise was to deliver managed services from our own infrastructure, based on the best practice expertise applied by managed service providers around the world. The result is that our clients can benefit from high-performance ITIL-aligned technology at a reduced cost and human overhead,” Osburn explains. Demonstrating flexibility to respond to global market conditions, he says Quintica had originally planned to build and launch its initial managed services offering in Dubai. “With the shift in the economic climate, it became apparent that the ideal location for the launch of our managed services portfolio would be Kenya, which has proven to be among the most promising emerging markets in which we have operations,” Osburn confirms.

The East African market, Osburn believes, is ready to take advantage of high performance, cost-effective managed service solutions, as many businesses in the area are at an appropriate stage of maturity. “The concept of managed service is gaining acceptance. As such, Quintica will continue the tradition of bring the very latest and best technologies to this and other markets in which we operate.”

With the decision made, Quintica has completed the construction of a managed data centre in Nairobi and has deployed the necessary infrastructure to commence operations. “Early on, e-mail services were identified as a key service offering. However, we didn't just want to offer standard e-mail, but rather to introduce an offering that would provide a distinct benefit to business users,” Osburn continues.

As such, the company's initial mail service is based on the complete Microsoft Communications Service platform. This includes Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Office Communication Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services, delivering a complete unified communication solution. Osburn confirms that Quintica's implementation, based on Microsoft Hyper-V virtualisation technology, is designed to scale out to support millions of users.

The combination of high-end data class file servers, with Microsoft's Hyper-V managing multiple virtual servers that delivers the complete communications service platform, in a multi-tenancy environment, is a first in the region. Confirmed by Karl Roe, of Microsoft Middle East: “Quintica is leading the revolution in service offerings with this combination. As an official hosting partner, this is the type of initiative that we have come to expect from Quintica.”

Providing some insight into the company's plans for the introduction of further managed services, Osburn says it has consulted with several best-of-breed vendors, identifying appropriate services for the market. “We have engaged with industry leaders including Microsoft, Symantec, Dell, IBM, SUN, NetApps, EMC, BMC, VMware, Citrix, Riverbed and Cisco. Ultimately, this exercise resulted in the selection of key technologies, products and solutions from most of these vendors to underpin what will be a growing managed services portfolio,” he says.

Noting that a data centre is a constantly evolving facility, Osburn says despite commencing operations only recently, several upgrades have already been planned, supporting Quintica's commitment to applying the latest technology for its clients. These upgrades include migrations to the latest Windows Server platform, Windows Server 2008 R2, and a major upgrade to the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 platform in late 2009 or early 2010.

When asked about other innovative solutions, Osburn added: “One of the most exciting services we are bringing to market is suited to the high penetration of mobile devices in the region.” He continued: “The ability to offer a range of connectivity services utilising the range of Windows phones will start to deliver true cloud services to the region.

“The first six months of 2010 will prove busy for Quintica, as we roll out the additional hosted Microsoft offerings, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP, Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft Office Web applications,” he adds. “As well as these services, we are already offering managed infrastructure, covering servers, network equipment and applications, as well as storage as a service that utilise our high performance and highly secure facility,” Osburn added.

“Building and offering these services are just the tip of the iceberg. We're drawing on a wealth of IT service management expertise to ensure that these and more services are delivered and operated according to industry best practice, including ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000,” Osburn concludes.