Sky is the limit for local businesses as Q-KON readies to resell satellite-based cloud computing solution

Management at Q-KON, a South African-based provider of turnkey solutions covering specialist areas of telecommunications and ICT, has signed a reseller agreement with ND SatCom, an SES ASTRA company and global supplier of satellite communication systems and equipment.

The agreement positions Q-KON as an official local reseller of ND SatCom products, including XWARP, a virtualisation and satellite communication solution.

ND SatCom has its headquarters in Germany and has regional sales and support entities in Europe, USA, Middle East and China. The company's products and solutions are used in more than 200 transnational networks in government, military, telecom and broadcast environments.

Q-KON is an established local provider of turnkey solutions that are targeted at key areas within telecommunications and ICT, incorporating satellite deployments, microwave networks, wireless and VOIP hardware.

The company made headlines recently when it secured joint first place for a Satellite IT Innovation Award within the Business Service Innovation category of the Global Telecoms Business (GTB) Innovation Awards 2010, held recently in London, UK.

The established national service provider received worldwide accolade for its contribution to the testing of XWARP in a commercial environment. Following a series of comprehensive testing of the solution within various scenarios, Q-KON proved that it had the ability to support the rollout of this technology in South Africa.

According to ND SatCom, XWARP “is the first IT solution to offer geographically distributed companies or their IT service providers almost latency-free, virtualised and bandwidth-optimised software performance at the user's front end - especially for business critical applications such as SAP, Oracle, SharePoint and MS Office.”

The developer sought to partner with an established credible company that had a proven track record in enterprise application development and integration with satellite communications infrastructure.

Both developer and reseller say the solution addresses the challenges of latency and cost management for would-be investors in satellite communications networks.

“Until now the challenges have meant that this network infrastructure is not usually the first choice for network back up and enterprises connectivity across key applications. XWARP combines satellite with Citrix virtualisation technology and is able to provide cost-effective cloud computing via satellite,” says Dawie de Wet, CEO of Q-KON.

De Wet is confident that the market will gain significant value from investment in XWARP and the provision of reliable satellite-based connectivity.

“Cloud computing and virtual-based service provision continues to influence connectivity and communication within enterprises. Operators within various sectors and across many industries want to leverage off satellite infrastructure to back their networks up and establish cost-effective and reliable communications infrastructure. This is where XWARP is positioned to really add value with the promise of effective cost management and the ability to overcome latency issues,” he adds.

“Overcoming latency and maintaining reasonable costs are typical challenges for transmission via satellite. With XWARP companies can provide virtualised applications from their data centres to users anywhere and anytime, and minimise latency in satellite-based IT networks to almost zero with our new technology enhancements,” says Markus Vogl, Director of Product and Solution Management at ND SatCom.

“We are very pleased to have Q-KON on board as a non-exclusive reseller of our product within the growing South African market. We believe that the partnership will strengthen each party's position within an increasingly competitive market and also result in benefit and choice for clients,” said Johann Pohany President & CEO at ND SatCom.