Hey Guys

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

These words were once said by Thomas J. Watson

Microsoft has just announced that they will be setting up a data center in Africa. Well lets just say Microsoft added one of those computers on African soil

Scott Guthrie the Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise Group, Microsoft  said today :   “We plan to deliver the Microsoft Cloud — including Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 — from data centers located in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with initial availability in 2018. These new Microsoft Cloud regions will offer enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with data residency.”

Read more at https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/05/18/microsoft-deliver-microsoft-cloud-datacenters-africa/#t1b9TjKkwMd9HaMO.99

Now some of you might look at me and ask so?

Lemme try to explain

I will no longer have to explain why there is a conspicuous gap on this slide(I’ll talk about it n another Post)

This means as developers we now have access to Microsoft Global Datacenter infrastructure in a location closer to us(Depending where you are reading this from)

             This means i can now choose “South Africa” from that drop down list on Azure

Customers across Africa, including local startups and NGOs, will be able to use the cloud services delivered from these new regions to power innovation and opportunity for Africa and the world. For example:

• M-KOPA Solar has used mobile and cloud technology to develop an affordable pay-as-you-go solar energy solution to provide electricity to more than 500,000 homes.
• AGIN has leveraged the cloud to enable an app to connect 140,000 smallholder farmers to key services, enabling them to share data and facilitate $1.3 million per month in finance, insurance and other services.

This announcement brings Microsoft to 40 cloud regions around the world — more than any other cloud provider — and will help organizations and people from Cairo to Cape Town accelerate their journey to cloud computing.

This new investment is also major milestone in our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, part of our ongoing effort to create a Cloud for Global Good and an extension of the efforts we have put in place to invest in Africa, including:

• Helping to transform and modernize 728,000 small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) by bringing their companies online, with more than 17,000 continuing to use the 4Afrika hub to promote and grow their businesses.
• Using the Microsoft Cloud to bring access to training and education, building job skills for more than 775,000 people in Africa on subjects ranging from digital literacy to software development.

Read more at https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/05/18/microsoft-deliver-microsoft-cloud-datacenters-africa/#t1b9TjKkwMd9HaMO.99

I have had the privilege of being  part of the 4Afrika team for the last two years and the Kind of transformational impact it bring on the  continent is big, this means we are building Africa’s competitiveness on the continent.