Akura Manufacturing Engineering Company (Pty) Ltd., a manufacturer of specialized machinery based in Paarl Valley in the Western Cape, has integrated Preserv8TM, the only email archiving Software plus Services Microsoft globally certified solution available to the local market and developed by Integr8 IS (Pty) Ltd.
The engineering concern was established in 1970 with the purposes of building and supplying specialized machinery. It also operates sales and service branches on the East Rand, Gauteng and Pinetown, KwaZulu Natal.
Akura Engineering employs 75 staff to design and supply equipment to blue chip clients across several industries, such as the paper, plastic, recycling, waste management and mining industries.
A combination of disparate systems, inadequate archiving and downtime resulted in frustration with e-mail communications. Management decided a change was necessary and set about the search for a new solution.
“We thoroughly investigated the various offerings in the market and found that most products masquerading as Unified Email Management (UEM) platforms were either built on open source technologies or were simply commoditized solutions,” said Anton du Toit, general manager at Akura Engineering. “We strongly believe that any for a solution to be effective, efficient, robust and scalable, it needs to compact and simple in design. Simplicity without the loss of functionality remains the hallmark of a well thought out solution.”
According to Du Toit the open source offerings appeared to have contained large portions of “free-ware” components which cannot be classified as best of breed or enterprise strength.
“The commoditized solutions are a composite of disparate systems strung together with an overlaid interface in order to expedite the vendor time to market. We believe that, based on software product lifecycles, this approach sacrifices quality and reduces longevity. In comparison, preserv8 is the only system designed and built from the ground up as a true UEM platform, using best-of-breed Microsoft technologies that carry the requisite global support and are proven to scale in the enterprise environment,” he adds.
Deon Robertson, CEO at Integr8 IS (Pty) Ltd., a Microsoft Gold Partner and global provider of software plus services to the domestic and international market place, says the solution met all the necessary criteria as laid down by Akura Engineering.
“Our client was in the market for a solution that did not represent a myriad of architectures and was essentially engineered from the bottom up. Preserv8 is only product to carry the Microsoft S+S ISV certification, and is delivered via high capacity carrier grade architecture in multiple top tier secure data centres around the globe. The solution provides an innovative dimension to unified email management and places a company straight in front of the optimization curve. Residing on the tier one internet backbone in secure data centres around the globe, preserv8 protects, captures, sanitizes, brands and archives all your inbound and outbound email while in transit,” he says.
“We are pleased to have in place a very solid partnership with Akura Engineering, who are widely respected and acknowledged for their technical capability and acumen, as well as their ability to leverage off only the most robust, reliable and proven systems,” adds Robertson.
