Convergence Partners investee company, Dimension Data has been positioned by Gartner, Inc., in the Leaders Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Communications Outsourcing and Professional Services (COPS) report.

Compiled by Gartner analysts, the Magic Quadrant examined 19 vendors of IT services for business communications systems worldwide, employing two main evaluation criteria. These include:

• ability to execute; and
• completeness of vision.

Dimension Data CEO, Brett Dawson said, “Our placement in the Leaders Quadrant is an important milestone for Dimension Data as we believe it illustrates that the market and most importantly our clients recognise the significant progress we’ve made on our journey towards becoming a world leading services led organisation.

Didata Press Release

Convergence Partners investee, Dimension Data, which was delisted about a year ago, after being bought out by Japan-based NTT in a R24.2 billion deal, reported double-digit top line growth for the year to September.

The company says revenue grew 14.8%, to $5.79 billion, from $4.74 billion for the 2010 financial year. It also reported double-digit operating profit growth of 10.8%.

Dimension Data’s system’s integration business, which makes up 78% of total revenue, grew 12.8% year-on-year, to $4.5 billion, and operating profit was 7% higher, at $202.7 million.

By region, Europe, Asia and Australia delivered good growth, while Middle East and Africa was steady, says Dimension Data. In the Americas, Canada, Mexico and Chile recorded “excellent growth”, but operating profit in the US was flat, it adds.

Internet Solutions grew revenue 6.9%; Plessey lifted revenue 22.9%; and Express Data’s revenue expanded by 24.3%. Merchants and Learning Solutions delivered “strong contributions”, the company says.

Internet Solutions grew operating profit 9.1% at an operating margin of 12.6%. However, operating profit in Express Data declined 5.6% for the year due to product margin pressures.

Dimension Data says Plessey’s operating profit improved “substantially” off a low base in the 2010 financial year.

CEO Brett Dawson says “this year’s double-digit growth is an outstanding performance”, considering the current volatile global economy and tough trading conditions.

In the next 12 months, the group will focus on building its cloud solutions and services portfolio, and global cloud infrastructure and platform.

“The group’s acquisition of OpSource in July, and the formation of our cloud business unit were critical steps in accelerating our cloud computing strategy,” says Dawson. He adds the company is on track to go to market with its cloud value proposition.

Press Release

Article from ITWeb

Article from Business Day

Dimension Data recently released its quarterly results, reflecting strong revenue growth of 4.7%, to $1.46 billion, in the quarter to June 2011.

So far, for the first nine months of the year, group revenue is up 13.4% in constant currency to $4.2 billion. Product sales improved by 13.1% and services grew 13.6% year-on-year. Dimension Data explains growth would have been higher in reported US currency due to the dollar’s relative weakness during the first nine months of the year. Overall, group operating profit for the nine months improved 14.2%, to $203.7 million.

Since the company was delisted from both the JSE and London Stock Exchange towards the end of last year, it is no longer required to publish financial information.

CEO Brett Dawson says the “group achieved an excellent nine months of trading compared to the results of the IT industry in general, and the business continues to show growth from a revenue and profitability point of view over the 2010 financial year”.

Dimension Data’s systems integration unit reported revenue 17.7% higher for the first nine months of the year, while operating profit grew 13.3% at an operating margin of 4.3%.

Internet Solutions’ revenue increased 6.9%, with operating profit up 3.3%, and Plessey grew “strongly at both the revenue and operating profit level off a very low base in the prior year,” says Dimension Data.

However, Dawson says revenue growth slowed in the third quarter after a strong first half. “Close attention to margins and the cost base has driven the improvement of operating profit up 14.7% in the quarter,” he adds.

In the three months to June, Dimension Data says its services unit grew 10.9%, while product sales were mostly flat, gaining 0.2%. Its gross margin improved 1.4 percentage points to 21.5%.

Gross profit gained 12%, and the company’s operating profit – 14.7% higher year-on-year, reached $74 million.

“We are investing aggressively in expanding the scope of our service offerings – both organically and through acquisitions,” Dawson adds.

During the quarter, Dimension Data bought OpSource to accelerate its cloud strategy. “Our focus on cloud services aligns to our longstanding strategy to become a services-led business,” says Dawson.

DD Press Release

Article in ITWeb

Dimension Data, the 74.9% holding company of Convergence Partners investee company Dimension Data Middle East and Africa (DDMEA), announced that it has acquired OpSource, an enterprise cloud company, in a deal that will see Dimension Data (itself a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Holdings) accelerate its cloud computing services offerings.  At the same time, Dimension Data, a US $4.7 billion ICT services and solutions provider has created a centralised Cloud Solutions Business Unit which will report directly into Dimension Data’s CEO, Brett Dawson.  OpSource will become part of the Dimension Data Cloud Solutions Business Unit.

OpSource employs 150 staff and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California with operations in Virginia, United Kingdom, Ireland and India.  Over 600 enterprises, service providers and Software-as-a-Service Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) employ OpSource’s expertise, experience and cloud automation technology to operate high-availability, business-critical cloud computing and hosting environments.

Brett Dawson, Dimension Data CEO said, “Market readiness for cloud services is being enabled by technology maturation, along with clients’ needs for more flexible services-centric, IT sourcing options.  Our decision to accelerate our focus on cloud services aligns to our long-standing strategy to become a services-led business.  Over the past few years, Dimension Data has been building cloud-related skills and capabilities in the areas of virtualization, data center and storage, managed services and hosting, and IT outsourcing – all critical to enabling cloud architectures for our clients.

“OpSource brings a rich set of services, a sound cloud architecture, and extensive experience in cloud services that will meet immediate client needs – in addition to a cloud infrastructure which supports development and growth in this space. We believe OpSource provides us with an accelerated time-to-market as their infrastructure and services are well-established and tested.  Dimension Data is now well-positioned to provide our clients with services that help them at each step in their journey toward cloud architectures,” Dawson explained.

Dimension Data’s competencies and capabilities in IT integration are a strategic differentiator and critical to helping organizations effectively adopt a cloud architecture. The Group’s experience with complex multi-national systems integration projects, coupled with its managed services, data center and storage, and security expertise are critical to accelerating the transition to cloud computing for clients across all regions.

According to Treb Ryan, OpSource CEO and co-founder, mapping a migration path and architectural design for cloud is complex and requires in-depth understanding of an organisation’s entire IT infrastructure, architecture, and relative interdependencies and risks.  “An understanding of IT integration across disparate multi-technology, multi-geography, IT environments is critical to evolving toward cloud-based architectures.  We believe that as part of Dimension Data, OpSource will be better able to capitalize on the global cloud computing market opportunity.  We’re thrilled to be a part of the Dimension Data family.”

Press Release

Article from TechCentral

After being listed on the JSE for the past 23 years, today marked the final day of trading of Dimension Data shares.  However, Didata exited on a high note with it reporting strong full year results for 2010.

The Dimension Data group, which is being acquired by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corp, reported a 9,9% increase in sales in constant currency terms in the 2010 financial year to September. The company reported revenue growth of 19,4% to US$4,74bn, due in part to currency gains.

In the financial year, Didata recorded an 8,2% increase in operating profits, bringing it to $237,8m, with operating margins having reached 5%, from 4,9% the previous year.

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Dimension Data shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone’s (NTT’s) £2.1 billion offer, with shareholders owning 93.42% of DiData shares accepting the deal. With the approval phase of the transaction now complete, Convergence Partners looks forward to an exciting new era for Dimension Data, especially in the fast growing African market.

Dimension Data said in mid-July that it had received a R24.2 billion buyout offer from NTT. Shareholders had until the close of trade [PUT IN DATE] to indicate whether they would accept the bid. The merger will create one of the world’s largest integrated telecoms and technology groups, speed up DiData’s growth strategies, and give NTT a platform to expand into markets outside of the Far East, including Africa and the Middle East.

“By leveraging the complementary strengths of both companies and by leveraging our synergies, we will provide global, high quality, end-to-end ICT services across the services lifecycle,” says NTT president and CEO Satoshi Miura. “Also, we strongly believe we will accelerate the execution of our strategies to achieve our shared vision.”

DiData chairman Jeremy Ord adds that the “acquisition process proceeded smoothly and we are excited to start charting the journey ahead”. CEO Brett Dawson is “eager to work closely with NTT to begin providing a mutual value proposition to our clients and developing new value that helps solve our clients’ IT and business challenges”.

NTT will now request DiData to proceed with cancelling its listings on both the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges.

See attached press release

Article in ITWeb

Dimension Data, the $4 billion IT solutions and services provider, has achieved Global Certification from Cisco. This elite designation recognises Dimension Data as having fulfilled the training requirements and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support Cisco® networking solutions around the globe. Dimension Data becomes one of four organisations with this elite status worldwide.

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