South African cloud services distribution firm Digicloud Africa has entered Google Cloud's ecosystem as a value added distributor for Google Cloud Platform and G Suite in Africa.

Digicloud Africa will operate as a two-tier distributor supporting resellers across Africa, which in turn will work with Google's cloud customers in different vertical market segments.

"We're excited to work with Digicloud Africa to empower customers and partners in South Africa," said Avinesh Pillay, Head of Cloud Partners for Sub-Saharan Africa at Google Cloud. "Our collaboration with Digicloud includes providing training and upskilling, reseller on-boarding, and deep local knowledge to help partners grow their Google Cloud practices."

Digicloud Africa has signed up new distributor authorised resellers in Kenya and South Africa and will partner with more Sub-Saharan resellers over the next two years.

The company's chief executive officer Gregory MacLennan said the distributor authorised resellers signed up include specialists in data & analytics, infrastructure modernisation, collaboration & productivity, cloud migrations and machine learning.

Resellers will be able to draw on Digicloud Africa's technical skills to offer more complete solutions to their customers. "For example, a specific client solution may require expertise in both Machine Learning and Data & Analytics. Rather than losing out on the business, a reseller that specialises in machine learning but lacks data & analytics skills, can call on our data analytics experts to work with them to give the customer a complete solution," MacLennan explained.

"Digicloud Africa is partnering with Google Cloud as a best in class cloud hyperscaler that can digitally enable the African continent. Google Cloud brings a unique approach to digital transformation. The Digicloud team have experienced Google Cloud's innovation first-hand and have built the organisation around the organisation's experience," MacLennan says.

"Over the next two years, Digicloud Africa intends to onboard at least another fifty resellers in Africa, which have the specialised skills to address the African cloud market," he added.

Shai Morgan, who leads Google Cloud's business in Sub-Saharan Africa concludes: "Google's Equiano subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa was announced only a few months ago, demonstrating our continued commitment to the continent. This new partnership agreement is yet another key milestone in building a solid foundation for Google Cloud's business across Sub-Saharan Africa."

Announcing the partnership at the 2019 Gartner Symposium and Expo in Cape Town this week, Adrian Basson, founder and executive chairman of Digicloud Africa, along with Morgan and Pillay, said the launch is the culmination of a year of developing the ecosystem, and preparation of a contract to solidify the offering and cement all relevant roles and responsibilities (including certification), along with the business model – which is a breakaway from traditional 'via-the-channel-straight-to-the-customer' cloud services model – and one that is "custom-built for Google".

The companies describe the announcement as a quality versus quantity mechanism, that places reseller partners under Digicloud Africa, and has the network backbone capacity to fulfil the cloud requirements of "any business in any location."

The intention is to provide a continent-wide service that meets the needs of all markets, irrespective of geographic location.