Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 39 | Page 10

NEWS Mobile users in South Africa set to benefit from price drop V VMware announces expanded portfolio of products to modernise applications and infrastructure odacom, the South African telecoms giant, has agreed to reduce the cost of its data offerings by as much as 40%. The move follows a finding that the country’s mobile data prices were the highest in the whole of Africa, according to a report issued by the Competition Commission. In December last year, the watchdog warned both Vodacom and MTN that they would face prosecution if they did not agree to cut data prices within two months of its finding. “Vodacom has agreed to a multi-year substantial reduction of monthly data bundles across the board. Effective from April 1 the price will come down by over 30% across all channels,” said a statement from the South African government. The network is not expected to fight the Competition Commission but instead deal with the issues raised by it. As a result, Vodacom has agreed to a two- year reduction on its monthly data bundles across the board. Rival telecommunications groups MTN and Telkom are expected to follow suit within the next two weeks with their own proposals. “We are talking to all of them and we are quite advanced in reaching agreements with both MTN and Telkom. I am hopeful that we will conclude this soon,” said Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele. V Mware has announced a comprehensive portfolio of products and services to help customers modernise their applications and infrastructure. These offerings are immediately available in all regions of Africa and are expected to be a huge driver in economic growth for the company – especially in Nigeria which has an economy currently growing faster than South Africa’s. VMware is introducing the newly expanded VMware Tanzu portfolio for modern applications, and VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu, the automated, turnkey hybrid cloud platform that now supports both traditional VM-based and container-based applications featuring the new VMware Cloud Foundation Services using Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 10 INTELLIGENTCIO and the new VMware vSphere 7 to drive developer productivity. With a comprehensive software stack for modern applications-spanning application to infrastructure, VMware is well positioned to enable and guide customers to develop new modern applications as well as modernise existing applications and infrastructure. “We bring to market a comprehensive portfolio for modern apps to help customers accelerate their pace of innovation,” said Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “VMware gives developers the freedom to deliver apps to any cloud, remove barriers to Kubernetes adoption, and help IT administrators transform their skills in support of a new wave of modern apps.” www.intelligentcio.com