UK-based multi-vendor enterprise equipment services provider Solid Systems Global's Africa division has entered into a regional strategic partnership with Namibian IT services provider Cornastone Namibia to service the Southern African country's market and drive its expansion on the continent.

Solid Systems Global is exclusively channel-focused, with the bulk of its revenue derived from other Third-Party Maintenance Providers, with the rest coming from relationships with OEMs, subcontractors and commission-based relationships with VARs.

The company has also developed direct OEM support capabilities providing technical support to the OEMs' channel partners as an authorised support provider. These OEMs include Dell, IBM, EMC, NetApps, Seagate D-Link, Solarflare, DDN, Huawei, Boston Super micro, Intel and newly acquired Kontron.

Cornastone Namibia has been operating within the Namibian market since 2001 and is focused on the design, integration and maintenance of IT solutions that cover robotic process automation, API management, ERP, digitised marketing, security and telecommunications, among other areas.

Mobile telecommunications firm MTC Namibia is the country's largest mobile operator and dominates the space. In November 2018 invested in the Huawei Cloud platform to address the increasing local demand for enterprise cloud services.

The partnership between Solid Systems Global and Cornastone will provide end-to-end support and hardware maintenance solutions to key verticals in Namibia including telecommunications, financial services, public sector enterprises, mining, oil and gas, and mobile network operators.

Andre Hartley, senior business executive, Africa, at Solid Systems Global, said the ability to balance IT tech refresh against ongoing business challenges - for example plant and operations budget against IT or banking FinTech against IT 'keeping the lights on' – is something the local market continues to grapple with.

"All of these questions and challenges are at the foot of the CTO, CIO and CFO ... and only time and change are the two constants in life (that) will determine if you have made the correct choice. When we open up our Digital IOT offering to Africa partners and customers for the industrial 4.0 migration, this will really add additional value as it all non-intrusive," said Hartley.

He believes the alliance with Cornastone will service the Namibia market, as well as SADC and regional countries like Angola.

Hartley added that Solid Systems Global has a clear strategy for expansion in Africa and the company will onshore East, West and North as part of its southern hemisphere growth plan into Australasia and South America.

"We see great potential especially where technology refresh is a challenge. Our Opex model for services is a great success - especially when business is under budget pressure."