In a partnership with Cisco and NIL, mobile operator Vodacom has announced the availability of the first office in the cloud offering in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
Through the use of virtualisation technology and hosted applications, Vodacom says its Office in the Cloud will bring enterprise-class IT services to small to large businesses.
Vodacom Office in the Cloud has been in trial for two months, and has now been officially released.
“The solution is primarily intended to support businesses by providing them with enterprise-class IT services that would otherwise not be available to them, because of high costs (for example, high availability using redundant equipment, high performance, advanced security),” says Vodacom.
The offering comprises a thin client terminal, a flat-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse, a Cisco VOIP phone handset, an HP Picture 6 or HP Laserjet M1536 MFP Mono printer, and access to the applications portal and a choice of business applications.
Rental will start at R600 per month and customers can choose from Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems.
According to Vodacom, customers with an existing Microsoft enterprise agreement, with software assurance, will not be required to pay Vodacom for their operating system.
Cisco SA channel director Stefano Mattiello adds that the Office in the Cloud application store should not be equated to a mobile application store. “This is not a case of 'anything goes'; the business applications are carefully selected.”
Lower barriers
Apart from the Microsoft Suite, the offering also includes Open Office and SAP elements, and Vodacom says it is looking to add financial and human resource applications in the near future.
Vodacom says studies have shown PCs lose up to 50% in value annually, and the use of cloud services can extend the life of a desktop by up to 12 years.
“This is an African first, and we would say a world-first in terms of the way in which we're delivering the service,” says Vodacom executive head of hosted services Richard Vester.
“We took a long hard look at the market requirements and how to reduce barriers to service. We will continue to invest as we go along.”
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