HaaS is becoming mainstream in Africa

Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) is gaining ground on the African market, shifting from traditional IT models to third-party professionals services.

“The HaaS business model represents a substantial shift from traditional IT models, under which companies purchased, hosted, upgraded, and managed their hardware in-house, utilising their own IT professionals. Such a model has been the standard for decades, and it’s still widely used today. Regardless, the business value of a HaaS model is very real”, said Rob Godlonton, EOH director.

HaaS means that hardware (PCs, servers, storage towers, firewalls, routers etc) is financed and then maintained, serviced and updated by the managed services provider throughout the lifecycle of the product.

The company has extended the model to incorporate clients’ network and bandwidth requirements, addressing the current and future IT requirements in maximizing investments and reducing costs. These challenges have resulted in many looking to move some or all of their IT responsibilities, both software and hardware, to third-party professionals, paying a regular “rental” fee rather than thousands of Rands, explains Godlonton.

“The managed services provider can now equip clients with advanced hardware which would, otherwise, have been unattainable due to financial limitations or lack of in-house IT expertise. The delivery model also provides a lower cost of entry for clients who are unsure of their operational IT needs and financial resources in these challenging economic times”, he concludes.