Microsoft brings Azure to Africa with two new datacenters in South Africa

1 min. read

Published on March 6, 2019

published on March 6, 2019

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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.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.