Derek Friend appointed CM of StorVault Africa

StorVault Africa, a leading provider of online data backup and recovery solutions and the distributor of EVault software, a product of i365, a Seagate company, has appointed a new Country Manager, Derek Friend; who brings more than a decade of experience in the IT networking and domestic ISP market segments to the table, having consulted on major projects locally and throughout Africa and Europe.

Friend says it is hard not to get excited about the products we have at StorVault Africa.  “I am passionate about innovation and technology and proud to represent a product that has a proven track record.  i365 holds 32000 clients worldwide and is the global Leader in the $9B market of SAAS products, offering platform agnostic solutions that addresses all industry sectors, sizes of business as well as client data storage and disaster recovery requirements.”

When it comes to growth across all areas of the African market, it is all about data and the cost of data capacity. “As a continent, Africa is able to be much more competitive with the rest of the world as a result of the new undersea cable ventures such as WACS, EASY, and SEACOM.  It is effectively forcing data costs down, allowing more companies to work in the ‘Cloud’ and adopting a ‘SaaS’ (Software as a Service) approach, which poses its own unique opportunities and challenges,” says Friend.

Resistance to change is a very real hurdle to overcome.  “Many IT managers are still ambivalent about the concept, while a large percentage of enterprises on the opposite end of the spectrum are planning to integrate some form of SaaS within the next two years.  Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) are adopting the technology much more aggressively and in proportion to the growing need companies of all sizes to cut IT infrastructure costs by any means necessary,” explains Friend.

Friend says he is looking forward to the unique challenges that are facing the storage industry.  “I am determined to make EVault, Africa’s first choice when it comes to backup and recovery Software as a Service (SaaS).  StorVault’s managed service offerings into Africa is offered exclusively through channel partners, which extends StorVault’s reach in offering secure, reliable, world-class infrastructure that protects business critical data.  It sets quite a challenge for me to build a comprehensive country strategy that will focus on strategic partnerships by offering superior enterprise technology to guide businesses through an ever-evolving storage landscape,” concludes Friend.