From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. With an ever-increasing uptake of cloud services in South Africa, maintaining a secure, modern and innovative data centre has become critical. Natasha Odendaal tells us how Telkom is leading the pack.

Natasha Odendaal:
South Africa’s $185-million cloud computing services is expanding, with expectations that small and medium-sized enterprises would drive the uptake of services to $390-million by 2017.

The global cloud services market reached a value of $131-billion last year and was expected to grow to $180-billion by the end of 2015 as cloud spend rapidly increased.

Telkom, boasting the largest Tier 3 and Tier 4 data centres in the country, aimed to drive connectivity, supporting the explosive data growth and an increasing demand to access data from any device, any time, anywhere.

The group was driving the adoption of cloud through ICT solutions delivered through its Cybernest arm, aiming to become a one-stop shop providing a full range of services and leveraging the increased opportunity of cloud adoption.

Telkom Cybernest sales and marketing managing executive Theo Bensch tells Engineering News what it takes to keep pace with demand:

Telkom Cybernest sales and marketing managing executive Theo Bensch

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: Samsung hands over the first Digital Village; And, There’s a growing need to build capacity to support South Africa’s infrastructure ambitions.

Consumer electronics producer Samsung Electronics recently handed over its first South African Digital Village to the community of Malibongwe Ridge, in Gauteng.

Samsung Electronics VP and CFO Minkyu Lee

While capacity building in South Africa’s infrastructure sector remains important with regard to the economic growth of the country, the Black Business Council notes that government does not have enough capacity to ensure service delivery that will drive economic growth in the sector.

Black Business Council policy and research executive Pule Mokoena

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.