INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Vox ramps up Microsoft offerings
as SA businesses turn to the cloud
/////////////////////////////
Craig Freer, Executive Head: Cloud and
Managed Services at Vox
A
growing number of South African
businesses are looking to move
their operations to the cloud, and
integrated ICT and infrastructure provider
Vox is looking to take advantage of the
opportunity by helping them make the shift
by using a variety of Microsoft applications
and technologies.
The Cloud Africa 2018 Report, by World Wide
Worx, shows that the use of cloud among
medium and large organisations has more
than doubled in the last five years, with the
majority of respondents stating that spending
on cloud had increased over the year in
review, and would continue to grow in 2019.
“We are seeing a shift as companies migrate
from on-site Exchange toward Microsoft’s
365 cloud-based products and have done
thousands of migrations across a range of
industries,” said Craig Freer, Executive Head:
Cloud and Managed Services at Vox.
56
INTELLIGENTCIO
“This trend is likely to accelerate as Azure data
centres have now been launched locally.”
Having started with the Office 365
productivity suite, Vox has since expanded
its Microsoft offerings to include cloud-
based applications for enterprise resource
planning, business intelligence, customer
relationship management, and employee
communication and collaboration, to tap
into this growing market.
Vox further caters for business customers
who have their own data centres or
are making the shift to the cloud using
a hybrid model. Through its Braintree
subsidiary, created through the acquisition
of three companies, additional Microsoft
skills and competencies have been
brought into the company. This includes
consultancy, custom development and
on-premise implementations, giving the
company the ability to comprehensively
guide its customers’ Digital
Transformation journeys in totality,
and not just in the cloud.
“Vox is one of the few companies that are
certified by Microsoft to carry out data
centre migrations and has Microsoft Gold
competency across multiple divisions in the
company,” added Freer.
“The company has actively beefed up its
consulting capabilities over the past few years
and adheres to Microsoft’s methodology and
best practice around data centre migrations
and Azure cloud deployments.
“In addition, as part of Vox’s network
infrastructure is located within Teraco
– host to one of Microsoft’s local Azure
data centres – customers stand to gain
additional benefits in the form of
improved performance and reduced
interconnection costs.” n
www.intelligentcio.com