Global data storage firm Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has formally opened its Kenya office to serve East Africa.

Johannesburg based Shaun Barendsen, HDS general manager for sub-Saharan Africa, says HDS has been increasingly active in Kenya through its channel partners over the past three years.

And the new Kenyan office is set to head up the HDS operations in the region and work with partners and customers, says the company in a statement.

“With huge potential for growth and increasing interest in our cloud, data storage and secure collaboration solutions from customers in the region, we have now established a permanent office in Nairobi to support our channel partners in Kenya,” says Barendsen.

The Kenyan office is planned to be headed up by Aiyaz Shroff, the regional manager for HDS East Africa.

Shroff is expected to work with a core team of local resources including sales, pre-sales and engineering staff.

Meanwhile, the team is planned to be backed by skills from South Africa as well as resources from the wider HDS community that is represented in over 100 countries globally.

Barendsen adds that much of HDS’ focus in East Africa has been on the financial and telecommunications sectors to date, but that large enterprises across verticals are set to be targeted as well.

“We are seeing increasing demand from enterprises across Africa for solutions that enhance management of the data centre environment and allow enterprises to discover, analyse and realise more value from their data,” says Barendsen.

“The key issues for African data centres are much the same as they are globally – to drive down complexity, reduce cost and get more value from the stored data,” he adds.