Safaricom, Quintica pen communication solutions deal

KENYA’S leading telecoms operator Safaricom has entered into a partnership with data services company, Quintica, which will see the company provide affordable communication solutions to a variety corporate clients.

The Quintica Group provides a host of specialist IT services and is a division of the holding company, Q-Venture, which for the past five years has been the fastest growing systems integrator on the market.

Under the deal, Safaricom’s data clients ranging from big corporate, Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to Small Office and Homes (Sohos) will benefit from a huge menu of hosted and managed services from Quintica.

Speaking after signing the deal, outgoing safaricom CEO Michael Joseph said its growing portfolio of corporate data customers would enjoy uninterrupted and secure communication solutions.

“Quintica brings in their expertise as a hosting partner for our data and managed services giving our growing complement of corporate data customers much-needed access to a number of services,” said Joseph.

Speaking at the same event, Quintica CEO Charles Osburn said the Quintica team would further enhance the range of data services available to Safaricom customers.

“It is an honour to have been selected by Safaricom as the data services provider here in Kenya,” said Osburn.

Quintica will provide services which will include hosted Microsoft Exchange E-mail targeted at small businesses without a dedicated technical staff. They will enjoy all the features and functionality in one package at a small fee.

The company will also provide hosted Applications (utilising virtual machines) which will target SMEs that do not wish to invest in servers and data centres for their various IT needs.

There is also the option of managed (dedicated) servers which is tailored for customers who do not wish to invest in servers and data centres, but wish to control how their applications are configured and allocated server capacity.

Customers without server space can also lease the space from Quintica in a data centre environment under the managed co-location service. This will enable them to procure, install and maintain their own servers.

Hosted server services are becoming common in Kenya’s fast-growing IT industry as it allows businesses to free up capacity, time and other resources to concentrate on their core businesses with guaranteed back-up from a specialised operator.

BRIAN ADERO in Nairobi, Kenya