AFRICA
REGIONAL
CHANNELS
AFRICA
The leadership of Obsidian Systems
reflects on 25 years in the market
and the company’s service since the
first installation of Linux. A leading
open technology solutions provider,
the company has progressed and
evolved since that first installation.
OBSIDIAN SYSTEMS –
AFRICA’S OLDEST OPEN
SOURCE SPECIALIST
The management at Obsidian Systems
are proud people – they recently
toasted 25 years in the market,
cementing the company’s position as the
oldest open source business in Africa.
Muggie van Staden, MD of Obsidian
Systems, recalls the first Linux installation at
then client Nandos. He said it’s remarkable
how far the company has progressed
and how it has steadily evolved into an
enterprise-facing open solutions specialist
services provider. At the core of the
company’s value proposition is the desire to
affect positive change in business, through
the advantage of ubiquitous technology for
companies that want to be open and want to
share within an ecosystem.
“We are vendor agnostic,” said van
Staden. “We want to show the market how
things work, what works best or is the best
fit for the job, from a technology point of
view. Our passion is for solutions that are
designed to provide the best, whenever and
wherever required.”
Obsidian knows it has the technical
expertise, the market experience, the
resources and intellectual capital to help clients
with teams, code, data and managed services
across all levels, as well as hybrid cloud.
“There are many factors and features that
are associated with these areas of service
delivery and technical capability. We believe
Muggie van Staden, MD of Obsidian Systems
we have the right skills and industry knowhow
to add value to our client base and
ensure that they are at the top of their game
when it comes to technology investment and
application in the market, particularly with
the increased focus on cloud, data analytics,
Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of
Things,” said van Staden.
The company’s confidence is backed up
by its approach to, and continued investment
in, strategic industry-leading partnerships.
Van Staden said the company has
increased its partnership profile, underlining
the fact that Obsidian Systems has a
shareholding in Guruhut, enabling the
company to capitalise on Java expertise
and financial services. Guruhut provides
integration and Atlassian services into banks
and has extensive coding capability with
specialised resources for banks to integrate.
Additionally, Obsidian also partnered
with Autumn Leaf which, as van Staden
explains, affords them a massive
opportunity with Hadoop, data analytics
and cloud expertise.
“Recognising an opportunity with
Hadoop, Obsidian Systems is partnering with
Cloudera – which has significant insight and
knowledge about Big Data and continuously
innovating its platform to meet market
changes,” adds van Staden.
This approach to collaboration and an
unconditional take on expertise and skills
development where it counts helps to keep
the company ahead of the competition.
However, it is also Obsidian’s smarter
strategy, covering strategy, architecture,
resources and training, that has reinforced
its position in the market. The company
doesn’t only sell, it empowers teams and
cross integrates technology solutions from
agile methodologies to infrastructure
automation, managed services, experts that
practise DevOps and smarter hybrid IT.
“It would be fair to say that we were
ahead of our time and have really embraced
the role as visionary and unrivalled open
source and managed services specialist
trusted advisor,” said van Staden. •
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