INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Microsoft to deliver
Microsoft Cloud from
data centres in Africa
help accelerate new investments and
improve access to cloud and Internet
services for people and organisations
from Cairo to Cape Town.
“We greatly value Microsoft’s
commitment to invest in cloud services
delivered from Africa. Standard Bank
already relies on cloud technology
to provide our customers with a
seamless experience,” says Brenda
Niehaus, group CIO at Standard Bank.
“To achieve success as a business,
we need to keep pace with market
developments as well as customer
needs and Office 365 empowers us to
make a culture shift towards becoming
a more dynamic organisation, whilst
Azure enables us to deliver our apps
and services to our customers in Africa.
We’re looking forward to achieving
even more with the cloud services
available here on the continent.”
Investing in African innovation
M
icrosoft have revealed plans
to deliver the complete,
intelligent Microsoft Cloud
for the first time from data centres
located in Africa. This new investment
is a major milestone in the company’s
mission to empower every person and
every organisation on the planet to
achieve more and a recognition of
the enormous opportunity for digital
transformation in Africa.
Expanding on existing investments,
Microsoft will deliver cloud services,
including Microsoft Azure, Office
365 and Dynamics 365, from data
centres located in Johannesburg and
Cape Town, South Africa with initial
availability anticipated in 2018. The
new cloud regions will offer enterprise-
grade reliability and performance
combined with data residency to help
enable the tremendous opportunity
for economic growth and increase
access to cloud and Internet services
for organisations and people across the
African continent.
“We’re excited by the growing
demand for cloud services in Africa
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and their ability to be a catalyst for
new economic opportunities,” said
Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President,
Cloud and Enterprise Group, Microsoft
Corp. “With cloud services ranging from
intelligent collaboration to predictive
analytics, the Microsoft Cloud delivered
from Africa will enable developers
to build new and innovative apps,
customers to transform their businesses
and governments to better serve the
needs of their citizens.”
Expanding access & opportunity
Currently many companies in Africa
rely on cloud services delivered from
outside of the continent. Microsoft’s
new investment will provide highly
available, scalable and secure cloud
services across Africa with the option
of data residency in South Africa. With
the introduction of these new cloud
regions, Microsoft has now announced
40 regions around the world – more
than any major cloud provider. The
combination of Microsoft’s global
cloud infrastructure with the new
regions in Africa will connect businesses
with opportunity across the globe,
This announcement expands on
ongoing investments in Africa, where
organisations are using currently
available cloud and mobile services
as a platform for innovation in health
care, agriculture, education and
entrepreneurship. Microsoft has been
working to support local start-ups and
NGOs, unleashing innovation that
has the potential to solve some of the
biggest problems facing humanity,
such as the scarcity of water and food
and economic and environmental
sustainability. One start-up, M-KOPA
Solar, provides affordable pay-as-
you-go solar energy to over 500,000
homes using mobile and cloud
technology. AGIN has built an app
connecting 140,000 smallholder
farmers to key services, enabling them
to share data and facilitating $1.3
million per month in finance, insurance
and other services.
Across Africa, Microsoft has brought
728,000 small and mid-size enterprises
(SMEs) online to help them transform
and modernise their businesses
and over 500,000 are now utilising
Microsoft cloud services, with 17,000
using the 4Afrika hub to promote and
grow their businesses. The Microsoft
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