Microsoft has opened two new Azure datacenters in South Africa, located in Cape Town and Johannesburg, giving organizations within the country access to the services it has to offer. The company also claims to be “first global provider to deliver cloud services from datacenters on the continent,” according to a new Azure blog post.
Besides being able to increase innovation and help stimulate more advanced technological development within the country, Microsoft also claims this will create as many as 112,000 new jobs over the next four years. Multiple organizations have already signed on to be able to use Azure resources, including Nedbank, the Peace Parks Foundation, eThekwini water, among others.
While Azure might be the first major player for the country and its surrounding neighbors, Microsoft also plans to bring the other two core products on the Microsoft Online suite to the table—starting with Office 365 in the third quarter and then bringing Dynamics 365 to businesses before the year’s end.
It’s definitely nice that Microsoft is focusing on driving innovation and job creation for other countries. Hopefully, this will entice other companies to follow its lead and bring come competition to the surrounding areas.
Further reading: Azure, Cloud, Enterprise, Microsoft, South Africa
