First Distribution (FD) has signed up as a value-added Huawei Cloud partner.

FD reseller partners will now be able to offer their customers a range of Huawei Cloud services, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS), including storage, compute, network, database, container, big data and artificial intelligence, says Michael de Bruin.

“Huawei has over a decade’s experience with cloud infrastructure, ensuring our platform is qualified and world-class,” comments Jay Zhou, Managing Director of Huawei Cloud South Africa. “As a relatively new entrant into the public cloud market, our objective is to drive digital transformation.

“In a drive to secure market share, Huawei Cloud has a flexible, cost-effective commercial model – together with an infrastructure that is world-class and uncompromised in its quality and scale.”

Huawei offers ongoing, local service and 24/7 support, with three teams in South Africa, located in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. This local presence creates a hub for partners and customers, offering a hands-on approach to facilitate customer engagements and partner support.

FD’s reach in South Africa and SADC is one of the reasons Huawei chose to partner with the company. Of the distributor’s 4 000 reseller, more than 1 000 are already signed up as cloud partners, so there is great synergy and value alignment between the two companies.

First Distribution, through its Cloud Catalyst Program, will take its partners on the Huawei Cloud Journey, helping them to become value-added Huawei Cloud Partner, explains Michael de Bruin, Huawei Brand Manager at First Distribution.

Partners can attend business transformation workshops to help them improve cloud adoption.

Here, they will learn about internal sales framework changes, understanding the annuity business, building solutions, financial understanding, SLA assistance, product roadmaps, platform understanding, commercial go-to-market strategies, bundling and cross selling, and consulting billing.

As Africa’s leading value-added distributor and one of the pioneers of cloud distribution in South Africa, FD offers its resellers a wide range of services, including:

· First-line product and licensing support;

· Billing support;

· Technology updates ;

· Technical webinars;

· Certification guidance; and

· Blog posts for updated best practices and whitepapers.