Networking and unified communication technologies are relevant to SA despite the country's bandwidth constraints.
Alcatel-Lucent, an international networking solutions giant, has identified SA as a key opportunity to roll out its unified communications technology.
Nicolas de Kouchkovsky, chief marketing officer for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, indicated during the Alcatel-Lucent Dynamic Tour in Barcelona this week that the company would be rolling out its OpenTouch offering and video collaboration solutions to SA in June.
“With more broadband capacity from new networks and undersea fibre cables, we do see the problem of bandwidth being addressed and that video on multiple mobile devices will become more relevant for the South African workforce.”
He added: “Social media and video is a phenomenon that exists everywhere and this translates to the fact that business needs to accommodate different types of devices and applications.
“We are seeing a huge adoption of mobile phones in Africa. This is also a reflection of the distributed workforce and video is becoming imperative to collaboration.”
He added that the OpenTouch architecture can also work across various networking environments and can move from a 3G to a 2G experience.
“We've made sure that these set of technologies are positioned to make sense for emerging countries,” he noted.
According to Roc Muraine, director of strategic solutions for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Middle East and Africa, there's been a big shift globally in communications infrastructure and collaboration and SA has been a part of this trend.
Majority of enterprises in North and West Africa still have their legacy systems and Muraine predicted that these regions will leapfrog several stages of technology to leverage mobile devices and collaboration solutions.
During an interview with ITWeb, Alain Penel, Alcatel-Lucent VP for Middle East and Africa, highlighted that SA is the company's biggest African market, followed by Morocco, Niger, and Kenya.
Alcatel-Lucent's biggest markets in the Middle East include UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“Alcatel-Lucent's strongest market share in SA comes from communications,” said Penel. “Our biggest customer is the City of Tshwane, and they have shown interest in our OpenTouch next-generation architecture.”
He said government is in discussions with Alcatel-Lucent over its OpenTouch next-generation architecture, which combines video, voice and mobile technologies into one platform.
Penel explained that this means government would be able to communicate more effectively with citizens and improve public service. “A solution like this will simplify processes and make it faster to get passports.”
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