The scramble for ICT based business solutions has intensified following the announcement by MTN Uganda that it has extended its bouquet of Cloud Services to the country in a bid to deliver computing resources like applications and data centers over the Internet. This comes a few months after IT firm, One Solutions Uganda set up in the country offering cloud services.
Cloud computing is where people can save information through a third party and can access the data remotely. Popular cloud services include Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and Sky Drive among others. Cloud services are considered convenient and save, if compared to saving information on company servers and portable devices like flash disks or even hard drives.
Speaking at the launch breakfast at the Kampala Sheraton hotelon August 23, 2013, MTN Uganda’s Chief Marketing Officer, Ernst Fonternel, said MTN’s focus is to contribute to the development of enterprises and the sustainable growth of economiesby providing business automation tools to enterprises across professional services, micro-finance, health and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sectors.
The MTN Cloud Services are aimed at satisfying the growing appetite of business for ICT solutions that are relevant, customized and affordable. To this end thearray of the services under this product include cost effective e-mail and collaborative software such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a customer’s relations management tool, as well as security powered by McAfee.
Fonternel said, “The aim of launching MTN Cloud Services in Uganda is to support the delivery on the company’s promise to make the lives of customers brighter by leading the delivery of a bold new Digital World to them”. The cloud services allow one to use files and applications over the Internet via a data center and the approach entails the centralization of access to services, wherein a third party, in this case MTN, acts as the single point of contact for customers.
MTN Uganda’s Senior Manager MTN Business Sales (Extreme left), Chief Marketing Officer, Ernst Fonternel (Standing) and Reginald Kafeero,General Manager MTN Business(Extreme right) during the launch
The focus is on convenience as centralizing access to services eases the administrative burden for business where instead of dealing with multiple service providers, they now deal with only one.
The introduction of business automation tools in Uganda is part of the first phase of MTN Cloud services designed primarily for SMEs across professional services, and the health and micro-finance sectors but the second phase of MTN Cloud offerings will cater for major corporates and multinationals. MTN Uganda in 2012 launched a multimillion data center to provide “business solutions” including cloud computing.
“The roll out comes after uptake of the same services in Ghana and Nigeria registered positive reception and we are optimistic that MTN Cloud Services will receive a similar response in Uganda and in the other markets when it’s launched. It is MTN Uganda’s desire and commitment to continue developing tailor-made products and services that are in line with the growing and dynamic technological trends. We are hopeful that SMEs will utilize Cloud services to enhance business efficiency,” Fonternel concluded.