Enterprise Linux company SUSE is in the process of training and educating its African region partners, such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana, to apply new open-source technologies efficiently in Africa.

SUSE director of sales Sander Huyts says that several training partners are being trained to use its open-source enterprise projects for Linux, storage and cloud. In this way, SUSE is extending the training of information technology (IT) professionals and partners in these African regions.

“One of the challenges that SUSE is facing is that there is a demand for knowledge and education. People are looking for knowledge and access thereto in a very simple and cost-effective manner,” adds Huyts.

He explains that the training will help keep its partners updated and ensure that SUSE customers have access to what they require and, therefore, feel comfortable in adapting to new technology and in using the Internet. The company is also currently working through partnerships with computer hardware manufacturers such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Fujitsu and several others.

SUSE has a well established customer and partner base in South Africa, which it has had for many years, and it has been stepping up its reselling and education partner coverage in recent years in other countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Botswana.

Huyts points out that SUSE has been established as a brand in a variety of markets and has a sales and marketing team from South Africa that targets the African market.

He explains that SUSE has a long history with Linux and related open-source developments for enterprise customers requiring stability, reliability, security and support.

“With open-source IT, there is a development and innovation level that outpaces any innovation that happened before,” he says, adding that this applies not only to Linux operating systems but also, for example, to open-source cloud solutions or software-defined storage. “In open source, the brightest people work together to [find] solutions that a community needs.”

“Our goal is to ensure that the SUSE Enterprise Linux system is operational and secure so that enterprises on all continents can use it. In addition, should the software or hardware not work accordingly with the operating system, we ensure that enterprises can get support so that this can be rectified immediately,” Huyts concludes.