Kuhn said that managed services is almost seen as the 'comeback kid' of technology: "After the 90s' trend of application service providers, managed services is resurfacing as an important priority for many companies. This is also driven by the increasing importance and maturity of cloud technology, the blurred lines between cloud and managed services, as well as customer demands for a different service and billing mechanism."
Marc Gregan, MD of AfricaOnline Namibia, said that to remain relevant in the marketplace, companies must move outside traditional implementation and support services: "There is great demand for managed services support in Africa. Also, cloud simply cannot deliver on its own, making a managed service, such as AfricaOnline's, a viable and cost-effective option."
Kuhn said that the demand is industry wide, with new customers emerging from hospitals, law and accounting consultancies, construction companies as well as a big surge from the mining sector.
"The fixed cost as a rental is very attractive to customers. They also like the fact that we simply replace their IT and manage all aspects. This includes: back-ups and archiving; firewalls and all security, server exchange management, email messaging systems and full disaster recovery," said Kuhn.
The backup and archiving, according to Kuhn, is key, based on Namibian law this will soon become a non-negotiable requirement for all local businesses.
For more information, go to www.africaonline.com.na.
