With New Data Centre in Ikeja, Business Connexion Brings Cloud Computing to SMEs in Nigeria

Business Connexion, Africa’s leading provider of data centre and cloud computing services, officially launched its highly efficient and secure Cloud Computing Services in Lagos this week. Business Connexion (BCX) is working in close co-operation with approved local resellers to develop regular releases of applications, which are high on the priority list of Nigerian SMEs. BCX’s first data centre, based in Ikeja, Lagos, will initially offer IT infrastructure as a service, messaging as a service, SharePoint as a service and Lync as a service. It also offers private cloud to enterprises and government, making this morning’s launch unique. The rationale behind using a locally based data centre facility is to ensure customer data is kept in the country, bandwidth cost is kept to a minimum, applications are not impacted by network latency, and a Nigerian-based service is available for Nigerians. It wants to ensure it provides Nigerian businesses, big and small, with secure, dependable cloud services.

“We are really excited to launch these offerings in Nigeria today, because it is the realisation of our continued growth and development strategy for Africa,” says Benjamin Mophatlane, Business Connexion CEO. “Nigeria’s economy has shown robust growth over the past decade and we have noted that key drivers of growth lie squarely in the telecommunications, construction, tourism, manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and wholesale and retail trades, all areas in which our business provides ICT solutions,” said Mophatlane. Business Connexion has partnered with Parallels and Rackspace, both worldwide leaders in hosting and cloud service enablement. Parallels has delivered applications to more than 12 million SMEs worldwide, using cloud services developed to simplify and quickly deliver applications to the SME. Resources and applications can now be provided from this highly secure, world-class cloud computing infrastructure, located in Ikeja, Lagos.