Dimension Data, the global specialist IT solutions and services provider, has been positioned by BMI-TechKnowledge as the largest provider of IT services to the South African market.

“In its latest IT services market sizing and forecast of 2010-2015 report published in December 2011, BMI-T recognised that Dimension Data was still the largest provider of IT services in South Africa in 2010, accounting for 15.4% of the total IT services market, up from 14.8% in 2009,” the company said on Tuesday.

According to BMI-T, the South African IT services market was valued at R33.8 billion in 2010, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 8.5%. The market was expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 9.5% over the five-year forecast period, reaching a total of R53.3 billion by 2015.

“The reason we have grown is because of the quality of our people and their desire to deliver exceptional services to our clients,” Brent Flint, services executive for Dimension Data Middle East and Africa said.

BMI-T reported that the maintenance, support and upgrade service segment was expected to account for the largest portion of the total IT services market, while hosting was expected to reflect the fastest growth rate over the five-year forecast period, with a CAGR of 18.1%.

Managed services were also expected to reflect a significant growth over the forecast period, with a CAGR of 14.6%.

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Article from Business Live

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 Chairman, Andile Ngcaba, was named as TechCentral’s newsmaker of 2011 for his significant impact on South Africa’s technology sector over the past 12 months, topping an impressive list consisting of Pieter Uys, Mamodupi Mohlala, Karel Pienaar, Robert Gumede, Roy Padayachie, Lars Reichelt, Michael Jordaan, Pinky Moholi and Mteto Nyati.

According to TechCentral: “Through his Convergence Partners investment vehicle, Ngcaba launched a US$250m satellite with Intelsat (after a false start) and signed a multibillion-rand deal to build a national fibre network with Cell C and Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions.

“Ngcaba has taken to the business world like a proverbial duck to water. Executive chairman of Dimension Data Middle East and Africa, in which he also holds a sizeable investment through Convergence Partners, Ngcaba is certainly prepared to put his money where his mouth is.”

“Despite his involvement in the launch of the Intelsat New Dawn satellite and FibreCo’s plans to deploy a R5bn national fibre network consisting of up to 14 000km of fibre infrastructure, Ngcaba has stayed largely out of the media spotlight in 2011. But we’ve been tracking his activities closely and we think he’s worthy of the accolade of newsmaker of the year.”

Read more here: http://www.techcentral.co.za/sa-newsmakers-of-the-year-the-top-five/28200/

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.

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Convergence Partners investee, Seacom, reports that, in 2012, it will upgrade its East African submarine cable and increase capacity to meet rising demand from the African continent.

In addition, Seacom will be expanding its core backhaul routes, such as the network between Johannesburg and Mtunzini, in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Marseilles to London cable.

Seacom CEO Mark Simpson says the operator’s network expansion plans and growth strategy will parallel Africa’s increasing telecommunications demand.

“What has become clear is that we must continue to expand its reach and performance. In fact, participation with other cable systems on the East and West African coasts signals the evolution of the Seacom network,” he says.

The Seacom submarine fibre-optic network system was launched on July 23, 2009, and serves to directly connect South Africa and East Africa with Europe and Southern Asia, covering a distance of over 17 000 km.

In July, Seacom and US-based digital optical network equipment supplier Infinera Corp, successfully trialled five 100 Gb/s channels of coherent optical transmission over a distance of 1 732 km using Infinera’s phototonic integrated circuits.

Simpson confirmed that the Infinera technology enables seamless upgrades from existing 10 Gb/s networks without having to upgrade the underlying fibre infrastructure. This will provide Seacom’s land-based network in South Africa with a total capacity of over 8 Tb/s per fibre an effective tenfold increase on its current capacity. This is in line with Seacom’s plans to expand the marine portion of the cable to over 4.8 Tb/s.

Article from Engineering News

Howard Early, COO of Plessey, explains the growing need for specialist infrastructure management in the fast-changing telco world.

In the early days of telecoms, it was taken for granted that the telco would build, operate and maintain its own infrastructure. Now, while many telcos do still operate their own infrastructure, fewer actually build it, and many outsource the maintenance of it.

In the new world of converged communications, where telcos and service providers have their hands full creating, marketing and delivering products and services to their customers, building, operating and maintaining infrastructure is even less core to their business.

Read more here! Itweb.co.za

Information technology (IT) services provider Dimension Data, a Convergence Partners investee, has been awarded the contract to supply all IT services for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) event.

The contract entails the supply of network, audio, visual, wireless and Internet connectivity across the Durban venue.

Network company Cisco will provide the technology for the network, audio, visual and wireless solutions and Internet service provider Neotel will provide Internet connectivity and bandwidth for telepresence and videoconferencing.

“Dimension Data is the service integrator across the partners and will provide consulting and design services for the actual cabling and data centre infrastructure at the venue,” says Dimension Data regional executive director Jay Reddy.

The company’s sustainability strategy is based on three focus areas, namely commitments and efforts to improve its own sustainability, its employee engagement and the services and solutions that help clients deliver on their sustainability strategies.

“Our focus on sustainable solutions helps us win contracts such as COP 17,” enthuses Dimension Data sustainability director Colin Curtis.

He states that climate change is of great concern to Dimension Data and the company believes COP 17 is an important event that will deliver definitive actions for governments, businesses and individuals to reduce their impact on the environment.

Since 2007, the company has reduced its carbon footprint by 43% and has reduced the travel related emissions for each of its employees by 59%. Reddy says the company is mindful of continuing its focus to meet the aims of COP 17.

Dimension Data is also a member of environmental body Green Grid, which is a consortium of organisations, businesses, policymakers, technology providers and utility companies that aim to collaborate to improve resource efficiency of data centre and business computing ecosystems.

The company participates in work groups and the development of technical specifications that improve the efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of business computing.

Article from Engineering News

SEACOM and MAIN One, the only two privately funded and open-access based African submarine fibre optic cable systems, were awarded “Best Pan African Initiative” at the AfricaCom Awards 2011 ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa, last week. The award recognises an initiative taken by an organisation or a group of organisations to improve telecommunications services at a regional or continental level.

Main One Chief Executive Officer, Funke Opeke, explained: “Through this partnership, Main One and SEACOM have extended their individual cable systems to the opposite coasts of Africa without the efforts required to construct brand new routes.

“The ability to connect the east and west coast of the continent directly results in improved throughput but also provides a system around most of the continent which provides improved redundancy for telecommunications operators.”

Commenting on the award, Mark Simpson, SEACOM CEO, said: “We are honoured to be recognised once again for our efforts in continuously extending pan-African connectivity by investing in infrastructure, products and services that meet the continent’s insatiable demand for bandwidth.

“This partnership shows our determination to find viable ways to extend our system with partners who share our vision of building the African Internet on an open and equitable basis.”

In addition, MTN South Africa received awards for the ‘Best Network Improvement’, for the Long Term Evolution (LTE) pilot test in Gauteng province, and ‘Best Marketing Campaign (dubbed Bow Wow) for MTN Zone.

MTN South Africa’s Chief Marketing Officer, Serame Taukobong said: “MTN is ecstatic to have once again gained this important recognition. These awards go to thousands of MTN employees, our partners and customers who shared the MTN vision with us and ensured that our objectives are realised.

“The accolades are further affirmation from the industry and our customers that we are on the right track and need to cement the work we have been doing to provide our customers with the seamless experience they have come to expect from MTN.”

Article in Seacom website

The Guardian Nigeria

Gadget Magazine

Wireless solutions provider Comsol, a Convergence Partners investee, started the R2-million installation of its new wireless multiservice wide-area network (WAN) solution at ferrochrome producer Samancor Chrome’s project sites, in Mpumalanga and the North West, in September.

Comsol chief commercial officer Darren Morgan tells Mining Weekly that the contract entails the installation of customised carrier-class high-speed wireless links to connect Samancor Chrome’s different sites.

“We will connect all the sites over hundreds of kilometres, using wireless circuits through a series of repeat sites. Instead of using cable infrastructure, we are using wireless point-to-point technology,” he explains.

Radio links are supplied to Samancor Chrome’s critical sites, which include Tubatse Ferrochrome, at Steelpoort, Ferrometals, at Witbank, Middelburg Ferrochrome, at Middelburg, Western Chrome Mines’ Mooinooi and Millsell operations, located at Mooinooi and just outside of Rustenburg respectively, as well as the company’s head office in Sandton, Gauteng.

Phase 1 of the project connected the Steelpoort, Middelburg and Witbank sites with 25 Mb/s radio links. Middelburg is the main hub, as all the centralised applications and systems applications and products are hosted there.

Morgan says the new managed WAN service is crucial to Samancor Chrome, as the company runs centralised systems and, more specifically, a centralised financial system.

“These systems are fully dependent on the capacity and quality of the WAN connectivity. Any disruption to the WAN connectivity leads to the centralised systems shutting down,” he adds.

Further, Morgan says that 48 V power backup systems have been installed at some repeat sites and the radio-frequency hardware is about 50% complete. He expects the installation project to be completed in October.

“This system will assist in improving communication between sites, which will contribute significantly to process efficiency and transparency, as faulty areas will be more easily identified,” he states.

Morgan says Comsol aims to assist several mining houses, including Anglo American, Kumba Iron Ore and Exxaro, with various wireless control solutions.

“We are also in the process of rolling out an extensive Layer-2 access network using the Comsol owned national 28 Ghz spectrum. This will provide high-capacity carrier-of-carriers access services to our partners,” he adds.

Further, he states that the company’s outlook for the future is optimistic, owing to the continued pressure on the general South African telecommunications environment to provide higher capacity and more services. Morgan believes this will ensure that Comsol’s solutions remain relevant.

Article from Mining Weekly

FibreCo Telecommunications (“FibreCo”), a joint venture between Cell C, Convergence Partners and Internet Solutions, announced the awarding of a contract for construction of its nation-wide open-access fibre optic network. FibreCo’s objective is to facilitate affordable and reliable high-speed Internet access for South African citizens and businesses.

The initial phase of FibreCo’s development will result in the creation of 2,300 direct and indirect job opportunities. FibreCo will also facilitate the training of at least 100 fibre optic technicians who will be involved during construction and maintenance of the network in all provinces along its route. Furthermore, FibreCo will make heavily subsidized fibre capacity available to academic and research institutions, enabling greater innovation in the use of information and technology.

FibreCo’s total investment will amount to R5 billion.

The Company envisages the development of a national network stretching over 12,000 km. Phase 1 involves linking up Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban as well as the East and West coast submarine cable landing stations.

Andile Ngcaba, Chairman of FibreCo, said: “This landmark investment will provide affordable, reliable and fast Internet access to ordinary South Africans.”

FibreCo proudly announced that they have awarded the contract to ZTE for the network construction and supply of technology equipment. ZTE is China’s largest publicly listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions. Work on the initial leg of Phase 1 is already underway, which is a 1,900 km link between Johannesburg and Cape Town via the Free State and Eastern Cape valued at R1 billion.

FibreCo has also signed capacity purchase agreements with its first 3 clients for the Johannesburg-Cape Town route, namely BT, Cell C and Internet Solutions, allowing them ownership of fibre infrastructure and the ability to build bespoke optical transmission networks.

Arif Hussain, CEO of FibreCo, commented: “We are delighted to welcome BT, a client with a truly global brand, to the FibreCo network alongside Cell C and Internet Solutions, who have been valued partners since inception. On the strength of these contracts, coupled with the financial backing of our shareholders, we have secured the necessary funding”.

FibreCo Press Release

Article from ITWeb

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