IBM i systems management solution provider CCSS has announced an expansion of its global footprint by entering the African market with a new dedicated agent for the region, AnyKey Technologies, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

The team at AnyKey Technologies benefits from more than 20 years experience in the region and established the company to address the rapidly evolving IT requirements of the African IBM i community. AnyKey offers both hardware/software consultancy services together with a broad product range—from high availability (HA) through to capacity planning and performance tuning solutions. The CCSS trilogy of systems management software solutions (QSystem Monitor, QMessage Monitor and QRemote Control) are the latest addition to Anykey’s product portfolio. 

IBM predicts the African IT market will expand from its present size of $8.5 billion to $12.5 billion by 2015, representing a growth rate of 12 percent per year. Fuelling this growth is substantial international investment and an influx of multi-national corporations all keen to secure their early market share of one of the world’s most significant emerging regions. IBM itself now operates 20 subsidiaries in the region (including this year’s Senegal and Tanzania branch openings) and has invested more than $300 million regionally since 2006.

Establishing an infrastructure to support Africa’s commercial potential has always been a significant challenge but with it, new opportunities for innovation also exist. In many cases, infrastructure can leapfrog the traditional barriers experienced by developed markets as there may be no incumbent technologies to replace or adapt. The result for Africa is rapid evolution but also a greater requirement for specialist skills from a workforce who have missed out on the valuable learning curve that comes with organic growth and development. 

AnyKey Technologies founder, Chantal Applewhite, says, “We’ve taken a very selective approach to the technologies we offer. The African market has unique requirements and the skills shortage issue influences the choice of supporting technologies that companies are looking to adopt. Part of the reason IBM i is so widely favored in the region is for its stability and reliability. We seek to add value to our client’s existing investments in that platform with CCSS’s systems management solutions which are well known in the IBM i community for their ease of use, functionality and ongoing customer support.” 

In meeting the specific needs of the African IBM i, community the developer/agent partnership between CCSS and Anykey promises to extend beyond the boundaries of a purely sales or marketing agreement to embrace the specialist challenges of the market. President and CEO of CCSS, Ray Wright says, “The value of our partnership with AnyKey will be in a collaborative approach to customer issues. Automated solutions can go a long way to easing the burden on stretched teams and certainly, the current economic restraints faced by IT managers is a universal issue and one we understand very well. Our definition of being pro-active and creating greater efficiencies includes instilling best-practice principles. Many IT managers in Africa will have the uniquely advantageous position of building an infrastructure environment on this basis and together with AnyKey, we look forward to supporting them and sharing the valuable experiences of our existing global customer base.” 

A recent example of CCSS’s ongoing contribution to highlighting industry best-practice standards to not only their customer base but also the wider IBM i community has been in the publication of a series of user-friendly guides on the topics of: Lights Out Automation; Security; High Availability; Rogue Job Management; Disk Expense and Cache Battery Monitoring. The CCSS Best Practice Guides are free to download from the CCSS website.

Contact details for AnyKey Technologies can be found at: http://www.ccssltd.com/about/contact-us.php

http://www.anykey.co.za

AnyKey Technologies was established early in 2011 by a group of South Africa’s leading IBM i and i5/OS specialist practitioners, both technical and marketing, who have been responsible for providing outstanding products and services to the IBM i in southern Africa community for the past 20 years. The company’s offerings include sales, support and services with selected third party software tools, like LANSA, and specialist installation and ongoing technical support of IBM i and i5/OS environments.

CCSS develops, supports and markets IBM i (on Power Systems and System i servers) performance monitoring and reporting, message management and remote management solutions. An Advanced IBM Business Partner, CCSS develops powerful solutions to support some of the world’s most demanding IBM i environments across many industries including insurance, banking, pharmaceutical and manufacturing. Existing customers that rely on CCSS’s feature-rich solutions include leading organizations such as Volvo, Mattel, Newell-Rubbermaid, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Siemens Healthcare. 

CCSS is headquartered in Gillingham, Kent, UK with key regional headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA and Bonn, Germany together with a global agent network spanning Austria, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.