Microsoft has key customers in Zim

By Paul Nyakazeya, Zimbabwe Herald Online

ZIMBABWE is one country in Africa in which Microsoft has key customers and a lot of interest, the world’s leading information technology company has said .

Speaking at the Microsoft celebrations day in Zimbabwe on Friday (April 8, 2005), the IT giant’s country manager for South and East Africa, Mr Pierre Nel, said he was happy with Microsoft operations in Zimbabwe and had established a wide fruitful network in the country, making it one country that Microsoft enjoys operating in.

"Our presence in Zimbabwe is very encouraging. There are over 500 key customers we are working in deep relations with. Definitely, Zimbabwe is one country in Africa that Microsoft has interest in for now and for the future," said Mr Nel.

He said Microsoft would continue to provide a platform to its partners by installing a centralised security system to reduce the risk of virus attack and system infiltrations in Zimbabwe.

To reaffirm its strategy to make cost-effective and functionally-rich business and financial software solutions available to companies across Africa, Microsoft in February released Navision 4.0 to the Zimbabwean market.

This was the first major product release since the global software developer introduced Navision just over two years ago.

Navision 4.0 is said to respond to customers’ demand for greater simplicity, provides deeper insight into mission-critical business information, more control over financials and general operational improvements.

In Zimbabwe local companies are making significant inroads into the lucrative information technology industry, a sector that was previously dominated by multinational companies.

In today’s world an organisation’s most important need is to ensure that IT provides the technical capabilities required to support and enhance processes — improving operational efficiency.

Typically, 70-80 percent of IT budgets go to maintenance and operations with only about 20 percent going to the delivery of new business value.

At the inaugural Information Technology Fair held in Harare February this year, exhibitors clinched deals worth over US$374 000.

More than 30 local and regional companies took advantage of the fair to showcase the latest hardware, software and services.

Zimbabwe is expected to take part at the World Summit on Information Society (WISIS) to be held in the Tunisian capital from November 16-18


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