{"id":39477,"date":"2013-06-06T09:57:40","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T07:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=39477"},"modified":"2013-06-06T10:55:28","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T08:55:28","slug":"netapp-changes-tack-in-sa-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/39477\/netapp-changes-tack-in-sa-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"NetApp changes tack in SA strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"NetApp\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/7017-NetApp\">NetApp<\/a> has announced that it has selected the <a title=\"Westcon Group\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2989-Westcon-Group\">Westcon Group<\/a> of companies to be its sole long term distribution partner in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>In February, NetApp, the Nasdaq listed computer storage and data management company, said its investment into Africa and regions like South Africa was starting to pay off, having picked up blue-chip clients including mobile operator, <a title=\"MTN\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1640-MTN-Group\">MTN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, NetApp&#8217;s investment into SA included the opening of a new corporate head office in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>The company said the decision to move to a consolidated distribution strategy in Africa was based on the need to take advantage of growth opportunities and to continue to maximize value for its partner community business well into the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe that this strategy will enable NetApp to deliver greater distribution efficiency and scale, and will lead to enhanced service and value for our reseller community,\u201d said <a title=\"Konstantin Ebert\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/8826-Konstantin-Ebert\">Konstantin Ebert<\/a>, director Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa for NetApp.<\/p>\n<p>Westcon will become the sole NetApp distributor from August 15th.<\/p>\n<p>NetApp said a focused distribution strategy is one element to ensure that the African business has the support required to continue to build on the success in the region.<\/p>\n<p>According to Konstantin Ebert, NetApp will extend and expand its investment in the region to support its business partners who include Bytes, DataCentrix, and Didata.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this new approach we have a stronger capability to drive our product portfolio across the African continent in a more effective and aligned way, especially our flagship solutions such as clustered ONTAP, flash and the E-series products,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking forward to the new, and much expanded partnership with Westcon Group, and the benefits that this relationship brings to our reseller community, and ultimately our collective customers,\u201d said Ebert.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on NetApp<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"NetApp talks up investment in Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/31455\/nettapp-talks-up-investment-in-africa\/\"><strong>NetApp talks up investment in Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Top paid executives in 2012\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/30148\/top-paid-executives-in-2012\/\"><strong>Top paid executives in 2012<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Top tech companies to work for\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/international\/30136\/top-tech-companies-to-work-for\/\"><strong>Top tech companies to work for<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"NetApp to bulk up SA operations\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/3291\/netapp-to-bulk-up-sa-operations\/\"><strong>NetApp to bulk up SA operations<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NetApp has selected the Westcon Group of companies to be its sole long term distribution partner in Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":31458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[313,2323,1328,26,797,2900],"class_list":["post-39477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-bytes","tag-datacentrix","tag-didata","tag-headline","tag-netapp","tag-westcon-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39477"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39484,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39477\/revisions\/39484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}