Browsing: Southern Africa

Top-level executives of Amazon and Microsoft, the world’s biggestproviders of important cloud services were both in South Africacoincidentally at the same time, this month. This is the clearestindication that cloud services have now become of great importancein Africa. In the wake of Amazon Web Services’ first data center’s openingin Cape Town, next year, Amazon’s chief technologyofficer, Werner Vogels, popped into town to launch the inaugural “Pop-upLoft” in Africa while Yousef Khalidi, Microsoft’s corporatevice-president of Azure Networking, visited Johannesburg to commissiontwo data centres in the country. Describing it as sheer coincidence, Arthur Goldstuck, ManagingDirector of Researchers World Wide Worx, wasn’t going to read deeplyinto the phenomenon but indeed believes that the presence of the world’s top cloud computing platforms’ executives puts South Africa in the debate for…