Further to its plan to establishing a premier Cloud Services marketplace for Africa, Seacom’s Pamoja cloud services business has been officially launched in the strategic East African market of Kenya.
The company, established in 2011 by SEACOM’s founder Brian Herlihy and Stafford Masie (former GM of Google SA), is a provider of wholesale Cloud computing services via telecommunication companies, ISPs and other service providers in Southern and East Africa.
Pamoja’s Cloud services will be provided via company’s network of data centres, located directly on the SEACOM submarine infrastructure.
The company is focused on a wider market, incorporating the fast-growing Small-to-medium Enterprise (SME) segment, and will leverage off SEACOM’s infrastructure, exposure to partnerships and Africa’s growing mobile and Internet market to entrench its services model.
“Our channel partners continue to experience a surge of interest in Cloud services in the African market. The drivers range from organisations responding to the global interest around Cloud computing to organisations which look at driving business value from IT but cannot afford to deploy and operate all the business systems they require. At the base level SME’s are looking for quality email, intranet and accounting services. They are prepared to pay for quality,” said Albie Bester, Pamoja GM.
Pamoja Cloud Services was recently introduced to business leaders, partners, customers and clients at the Serena Hotel in Kenya.
Bester confirmed Kenya’s status as a region of strategic importance and one in which cloud services will continue to have significant impact going forward.
“We have established a strong profile and offering that we know will add value to the African connectivity marketplace,” adds Bester.
Pamoja’s Cloud services will be provided via the company’s network of datacentres, located directly on the SEACOM submarine infrastructure. The first Cloud platform is running in the Mtunzini cable landing station near Richards Bay. The second platform is planned for Kenya, after which roll out will occur as and where there is demand.
As SEACOM’s strategic arm leading entry into content aggregation and associated Cloud computing services, Pamoja is leveraging off its parent company to build an SME Cloud services marketplace and take its white-labelled Cloud services to the market through an exclusive channel of resellers.
To date Pamoja has three channel partners in South Africa, three in Kenya and in discussion with others in Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia.
Speaking at the launch Mark Simpson, CEO of SEACOM, said, “Our rapidly growing IP network has been, in recent times, a key enabler for SEACOM and its customers, providing services that are more flexible and much more resilient. Our IP transit and Ethernet products have deepened our relationships within the market, particularly with emerging ISPs and customers working hard to build Africa’s ICT future.
In 2011 SEACOM incorporated Pamoja as its Value Added Services business unit, and the strategic arm in leading its entry into content aggregation and associated Cloud computing services.
Pamoja’s Cloud services business model is built on the growing demand for IT-as-a-Service from small and medium enterprises (SME), coupled with the need for service providers to increase the value of their existing offerings and grow broadband revenue. Pamoja is building a SME Cloud services marketplace which it offers to channel partners and service providers to on-sell under their own brand (white-labelled) to their customer base.
With access to dedicated SEACOM bandwidth, Pamoja will be able to deliver Cloud services from any of its datacentres in Africa, thereby bringing the Cloud to Africa.
