iLAB, South Africa’s leading software testing company, has received a level 3 Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Level. “Black economic empowerment is something real at iLAB.
BEE is not about window dressing. It’s about empowering others through these important initiatives and adding true value to our business. It is through BEE and other actions that we are able to truly build a stronger South Africa”, says iLAB Director, Jethro Lloyd.
For customers, the new rating means that they can improve their own BEE rating by doing business with iLAB – a company that is committed to the principles of broad-based black economic empowerment. “We are constantly looking at ways of improving our rating”, adds Lloyd.
He says, “Our newest rating is a true reflection of our on-going commitment to sustainable empowerment across all the elements of the BEE rating system – including management, transformation, preferential procurement, CSI and skills development”.
This announcement follows the acquisition of software testing company Test and Data Services and the remaining 50% of iLAB LLC .
iLAB specialises in Software Quality Assurance services, providing global solutions to its customers. It offers a comprehensive and integrated service portfolio. iLAB’s solutions are provided through their best-of-breed methodologies and tools supported by their international skills base and proven competencies. iLAB has offices in South Africa, USA, UK and Australia - and leverage on their holding company EPI-USE which has offices in over 20 territories.
iLAB, South Africa’s largest software testing company, has acquired the remaining 50% stake in the Indiana-based iLAB LLC from business partner WDD Inc. The two companies joined forces in early 2010, when they jointly setup iLAB LLC in Indiana. The success of the partnership resulted in iLAB acquiring WDD Inc.’s 50% stake in the Indiana-based company, in 2011.
WDD Inc. initially recognised that software development and software testing were almost identical disciplines, and establishedMobius Labs to provide technology-focused services in the software quality assurance arena. WDD Inc. lacked IP and expertise, and as a result a relationship with iLAB was formed by creating a new company, iLAB LLC, and rolling the Mobius Labs entity into the new company. This not only added value to iLAB LLC through iLAB’s IP, but also through their unique contribution of South African expertise, set iLAB LLC ahead of its competitors. “It was a partnership perfectly suited for iLAB LLC”, says iLAB Director, Jethro Lloyd, “because of our unique and invaluable experience, and our proven track-record in performance and automated testing.”
However, iLAB felt they needed more independence, and it was decided to acquire the outstanding 50% of the company from WDD Inc.
“It’s a perfect example of a South Africa company expanding and taking its business globally.” Lloyd says. “We have a flawless record of securing business in our chosen markets by bringing new and high-end solutions to clients. The acquisition of the remaining stake in iLAB LLC, with its outstanding team, adds an additional element to our business and endorses our commitment to being the leader in software testing. It means we can move forward with our plans to continue our mission of delivering the most advanced solutions to mainstream markets.”
This deal follows hot on the heels of iLAB’s acquisition of Test and Data Services (TDS) in March this year.
iLAB LLC Managing Director, Gary Bailey, welcomes the deal. He says, “We have had a successful and mutually beneficial relationship for some 18 months. The two organisations were a force to be reckoned with, when coupled together. This acquisition was a natural progression”.
With its acquisitions, its fired-up determination and smart strategies, iLAB has significantly increased its market share in Indianapolis and on both East and West coasts of the USA. Lloyd concludes, “We’ve grown immensely in terms of our client base, especially in the short term”.
iLAB has reached a level of maturity in its South African operation, and will continue to review acquisitions for global expansion. The Johannesburg-based organisation already has a presence in the United States, the UK and Australia.
iLAB specialises in Software Quality Assurance services, providing global solutions to its customers. It offers a comprehensive and integrated service portfolio. iLAB’s solutions are provided through their best-of-breed methodologies and tools supported by their international skills base and proven competencies. iLAB has offices in South Africa, USA, UK and Australia - and leverage on their holding company EPI-USE which has offices in over 20 territories.
The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) is tasked with financing, improving, managing and maintaining the national road network in South Africa. This mandate requires the use of extensive databases in order to store and provide access to the relevant data at all times, and when the company relocated its office from Hatfield to Val De Grace in Pretoria, they called on RDB Consulting to assist.
The relocation of the office also meant relocating the entire existing IT infrastructure to the new premises, including an extensive centralised Oracle database containing all of SANRAL's technical data. RDB Consulting assisted by ensuring that the database was shut down correctly and that offline backups were conducted for the entire system. Once everything was moved to the new location and all operations were started up, RDB Consulting verified that the database was still operational and had not experienced any issues as a result of the move.
Aside from assisting SANRAL with the relocation of their IT infrastructure, RDB Consulting has been providing the company with level two and three Oracle database support since 2009, ensuring the health and continuous uptime of the database and delivering the required skills on demand to address any problems that may occur.
"When our in-house database administrator emigrated, we took the decision to outsource these services and began to look for an organisation that specialised in Oracle database support. We selected RDB Consulting through a request for proposal process based on the sound reputation of the company, cost-efficient pricing, their impressive existing client base and the extensive pool of skills available within the organisation. With RDB Consulting we have access not just to one person, but to a whole team of specialists who can support our database," says Louw Kannemeyer, Road Network Manager at SANRAL.
"SANRAL uses an outsourced model for all level two and three IT support and RDB Consulting fills this role for our Oracle database. The workload simply does not justify having a full time in-house employee on board, and when employees leave the company we have to embark on the long process of procuring another resource. We are a small organisation in terms of headcount, and outsourcing our Oracle database to RDB Consulting enables us to access specialised and often scarce skills as and when we need them, without having to deal with the risk of employee churn," he adds.
The Oracle database is a crucial aspect of SANRAL's business, and if this database goes down the organisation will not be able to access any of their technical data, including traffic information. This has an impact on the strategic decision making of the organisation, so uptime of the database is vital. Using RDB Consulting's services provides SANRAL with peace of mind with its Oracle environment and administration of the database as there is always a high level resource available to maintain the health of the database.
"The main benefit for us with an outsourced model is that RDB Consulting works with other clients' database environments, especially Oracle, and their resources have gained a wealth of experience in this niche field. This allows them to identify issues quickly and resolve them before they impact uptime. By the time we experience a similar problem, the consultant has often already discovered the solution. This helps us to resolve issues quickly and gives us the surety that all of RDB Consulting's resources are highly skilled and experienced because they have been exposed to a variety of different environments," Kannemeyer says.
Using outsourced services from RDB Consulting gives SANRAL the ability to access resources and skills on tap, pulling in more resources when demand is high and then tapering these services off when the workload decreases. This model is ideal for the project based environment at SANRAL as it enables the company to effectively manage supply and demand and make more efficient use of available skills.
"Our services to SANRAL are conducted on an ongoing basis, and we are working with them continuously to ensure that their Oracle systems are optimised for better performance on their servers," Gerrit-Jan Albers, Service Delivery Manager at RDB Consulting, concludes.
About RDB Consulting
Established in 1995, RDB Consulting is an outsource and consulting company that specialises in four areas: Relational databases, Operating Systems, Monitoring and Enterprise Resource Planning. The organisation also offers project management, solutions architecture, on-going maintenance and support. Our services are designed to provide businesses access to expert technical resources whether full time, part time, co-managed or via remote administration. This allows companies to focus on their 'core' business and leave their ICT issues to the experts.
Financial reporting has long been a vital part of any business, and on-time, accurate results are of the utmost importance. This highly pressurised, deadline driven environment has always been a pain point for financial executives, and it has only become more complicated over the years, with annual reports and board books compounded by statutory and regulatory reports, and recently the need to conduct sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting as well.
This 'last mile' of reporting has traditionally been dominated by manual processes, tight deadlines and stressful conditions, and has always been time consuming and inefficient. Reporting needs to integrate data from multiple sources, both structured and unstructured, from across the enterprise. This requires collaboration from a variety of contributors, who have different areas of responsibility, and access to different data. This process also requires reports to be built, edited, reviewed, approved and published, all using different manual processes.
The manual process and the variety of different parties involved, along with the number of iterations before final sign off such as Word and Excel files being shared via e-mail, last minute changes, lack of workflow control, lack of access control and lack of audit trail have all led to multiple challenges including inaccuracies as well as legal issues as there is no evidence of compliance.
Some of the problems that are experienced across all the different sectors include errors in data collection from multiple locations, a lack of accuracy resulting from re-keying similar information multiple reports, low productivity due to linear workflow with multiple bottlenecks, limited version control and integrity issues. These issues all present risk elements including error, fraud, incorrect interpretation, lack of enterprise interoperability, lack of accuracy and failure to comply with regulation, with the potential to cause financial loss, legal challenges, loss of stock value, loss of reputation, fines and penalties.
Added to this, the proliferation of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), which aims to provide a global standard for reporting, is fast gaining ground in South Africa. All companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) that are dual listed on an international exchange are expected to begin using XBRL already, and this requirement is only set to expand. And existing inefficiencies are only compounded by the need to start all over again from scratch for the next period.
Technology provides the means to not only improve efficiency and shorten reporting cycles, but also reduce risk and enable the vast data gained from reporting to be used for analysis, allowing for better future business operations.
Automated last mile reporting provides a single, secure platform to automate and enhance controls over all management, statutory and regulatory reports.
This helps organisations to resolve the difficulties they face when it comes to preparing and filing external as well as internal financial documents, by eliminating manual processes and supporting collaboration, validation, access, workflow and version control as well as meeting XBRL mandates from stock exchanges such as the JSE and regulators.
By aggregating and consolidating financial and non-financial data automatically and using intelligent software with integrated XBRL functionality, organisations gain access to a collaborative solution that delivers a single version of the truth, with a complete audit trail, version and workflow control, integrated business rules and compliance checking as well as editable variables in the text, which can deliver reports automatically in a variety of outputs, from Microsoft Word and PowerPoint to PDF and even formats specifically for the various stock exchange requirements.
This reduces risk across multiple areas: risk of error is reduced, through a single version of the truth resulting in finance managers responsible for accuracy spending less time reviewing or handling last minute changes and spending more time analysing the results; the risk of late filing is reduced, since the reports are generated automatically from the aggregated data and can therefore be reviewed far sooner; the risk of insider leaks is minimised because access can be strictly controlled; and the risk of non-compliance can be addressed by building in compliance checks and audit trails, which increase confidence in the final report.
Research shows that more efficient report building via automation reduces overtime cost and even printing cost with up to 50%. The expected return on investment is between 3months to 1 year.
Integrated XBRL reporting has several advantages, allowing for the tagging of all numeric and textual data through standard XBRL tagging, reading and viewing, along with secure taxonomy storage, controlled user access and workflow, the ability to track taxonomy changes and create an audit trail, automatic XBRL update which enables tagged data to be automatically amended, and the ability to tag data once, which will then be automatically flowed to future periods, eliminating the need to start from scratch on each new report.
Automated last mile reporting prevents late submission and material errors in regulatory and statutory filings, prevents insider leaks and enhances weak internal controls and financial governance frameworks, reducing risk.
It eliminates manual data collection and consolidation as well as the need to re-key information, providing a secure environment for review and approval with automated error checking, reducing costs. It eliminates bottlenecks, complex time-consuming processes and manual updating of report data, which reduces the reporting cycle time. Finally, it offers enhanced consistency and integrity of reports, ensuring a single version of the truth and allowing for optimised analysis through intelligent, secure collaboration, improving business insight.
In addition to improving efficiency and reducing risk, automated last mile reporting ensures that companies will comply with some recommendations made by the new King III corporate governance code. One such example in the code is that the audit committee should consider the use of technology to improve efficiency and audit coverage and that the CIO and ultimately the CFO should understand the impact that ICT has on finance and more importantly on risk.
With the reporting process only becoming more onerous as the years pass, and the need for accurate financial and non-financial data crucial to the success of the modern business, manual reporting has become an increasingly outdated model. By automating this process organisations can not only save time and money, they can improve efficiency, reduce risk and gain access to reports that deliver real business insights that enable better outcomes and smarter decision making ability.
Binary Tree’s E2E Complete 2.0 is the Smart, Fast and Simple Solution for Upgrading to Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Consolidating Exchange Systems
29 November 2011
Binary Tree, a provider of software solutions for migrating to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, recently announced the availability of E2E Complete which adds support for cross-forest (inter-organisation) Exchange migrations in addition to its existing capabilities for automating intra-organisation Exchange upgrades.
“E2E Complete now provides customers with a comprehensive Exchange migration solution that they can use to upgrade, consolidate, segregate, and migrate their Exchange Server environments,” states Val Vasquez, E2E Complete Product Manager for Binary Tree. “And since E2E Complete is licensed to individual mailboxes, customers can migrate these mailboxes between on-premises Exchange environments and Microsoft Office 365 as many times as they need to.”
E2E Complete is architected to use the latest Exchange Management Shell
(PowerShell) commands in the background to move mailboxes at speeds an order of magnitude faster than agent-based tools and provides true bi-directional synchronisation between Active Directory (AD) environments as well as public folder migration to support legacy Exchange 2003 environments. E2E Complete provides project managers and administrators with centralised management and reporting, automated user communications, and the ability to automatically build a schedule and forecast for the project based on a small migration sample, taken continuously.
Binary Tree’s E2E Complete software was recently named "the Best Exchange / Unified Communications Product" in the “2011 Best of Connections Awards” by Penton Media’s Windows IT Pro, SQL Server Magazine, DevProConnections and SharePoint Pro.
Says Chris Hathaway, Director at Soarsoft Africa and distributor of Binary Tree solutions, “This award is testimony to Binary Tree’s innovative solutions and pedigree as a dedicated migration company over the last 16 years. Our recent distribution agreement with Binary Tree means that the local market now has access to these solutions and methodologies, that have been used for the largest and most complex migrations in the world, including sites with over 200 000 users.”
About Soarsoft Africa
Soarsoft Africa has specialised in Archive, Migration and Messaging services for over a decade, leveraging the experience gained from some of the largest and most complex implementations around the world to deliver cost effective and successful projects and solutions. Soarsoft Africa remains product independent, but supports and implements what it considers to be trusted and proven solutions to meet specific customer requirements.
Soarsoft Africa continues to evaluate its offerings to ensure they maintain market and technological leadership positions, so that clients are offered the very best advice when assessing products and solutions that will match their requirements.
Soarsoft Africa has offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town South Africa.
About Binary Tree
Binary Tree is a leading provider of software for migrating enterprise messaging users and applications to on-premises and cloud-based versions of the Microsoft platform. Since 1993, Binary Tree and its business partners have helped over 5,000 customers around the world to migrate more than
20,000,000 email users. Binary Tree’s suite of software provides solutions for migrating from Exchange 2003/2007 and Lotus Notes to on-premises and online versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Binary Tree is represented by business partners worldwide who provide specialized services and a proven methodology for guiding customers through complex transitions. Binary Tree is a Microsoft Gold ISV Partner, an IBM Premier Business Partner, and is Microsoft’s preferred vendor for migrating to Microsoft Office 365. Binary Tree is headquartered in the New York metropolitan area with international offices in London, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, and Sydney. For more information, please visit us online at www.binarytree.com.
T-Systems in South Africa has been awarded with the international and sought-after DQS body of standards certification. The umbrella accreditation is valid in over 60 countries and forms part of the global movement towards international ICT processes and management standardisation.
The DQS certification includes the:
• ISO 9001 (Quality Management System - Requirements); • ISO 20000 (Service Management System - Requirements); and • ISO 27001 (r Information Security Management System - Requirements).
This brings T-Systems’ number of certifications to five following the
ISO14001 (Environmental Management System - Requirements) and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System - Requirements ) certifications obtained earlier this year. T-Systems is the only ICT company in SA to hold these five certifications
Comments Gert Schoonbee, VP Sales at T-Systems SA: “The DQS international certification is yet another step in our efforts to be a leading ICT outsourced provider. It underscores the ethos of our business which is to provide local expertise and insight built on internationally-recognised processes and practices.”
“Our customers in the various and diverse industries we serve such as automotive, healthcare and manufacturing can engage with us confidently, knowing that our services and implementations meet the highest international standards which in turn align their processes with those implemented globally. Locally we are on par now with our international counterpart.”
The ISO 20000-1 standard, like its BS 15000 predecessor, was originally developed to reflect best practice guidance contained within the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework. It equally supports other IT Service Management frameworks and approaches such as certain components of ISACA's COBIT framework.
The ISO 9001:2008 specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organisation:
• Needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements; • Aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and
the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and
regulatory requirements.
ISO 27001 formally specifies a management system that is intended to bring information security under explicit management control. It is a formal specification means that it mandates specific requirements; therefore, organisations that have adopted t ISO 27001 can formally be audited and be certified to conform with this standard.
The security landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years. Not only are there an ever increasing number of threats to the network that must be guarded against, but the way we use networks has changed thanks to the advent of social networking and Web 2.0 applications. Originally, firewalls were designed to block threats at the network layer by analysing ports and protocols, however, today’s Web applications do not rely on specific ports, leaving traditional firewalls blind to threats and networks open to vulnerabilities. The time has come for Next-Generation Firewalls that combine the still necessary network protection layer with protection at the application layer, to prevent the host of modern application based threats from wreaking havoc on corporate and private networks.
“With the constant evolution of malware and security threats, protection too needs to evolve, and a few years ago one of the most popular ‘buzz phrases’ to do the security rounds was Unified Threat Management (UTM), which includes technology that combines a traditional firewall with port blocking as well as dedicated anti-virus, content and other filters at the gateway,” says Dominique Honnay, Director of Emerging Markets and EMEA Distribution at SonicWALL. “However, while UTM addresses several of the security issues that have come to the fore, it is unable to correctly identify individual applications, meaning that Web applications which are port independent can still find a way around the firewall, leaving the network open to threats.”
The Next-Generation Firewall addresses these vulnerabilities by identifying all traffic that comes into the network independently of the port, including a wide variety of protocols such as VoIP, streaming media, HTTP, HTTPS and so on. Based on certain characteristics of the data stream, Next-Generation firewalls can identify individual applications. This enables traffic to be filtered at the application layer, which when combined with traditional firewall technology provides protection at all layers of vulnerability on the network.
The latest in firewall technology enables organisations to determine usage patterns by monitoring all network traffic, which then makes it possible to create highly granular policies on a per application, per user or per user group basis, as well as by time of day or other variables. This delivers flexible control which can easily be tailored to fit the requirements of any network.
“Next-Generation Firewalls enable organisations to identify and control all of the applications being used on the network. This not only provides better protection, it also enhances compliance and data leakage prevention as well as enabling bandwidth to be more efficiently controlled. For example, bandwidth can now be allocated to mission-critical or latency sensitive applications, while restricting the use of productivity draining applications like online games or streaming video,” says Martin Tassev, Managing Director at Loophold Security Distribution.
By identifying traffic according to inherent unique characteristics rather than by source port, destination port or protocol, organisations are also empowered to control not only individual applications and categories of applications, but also specific features within applications. For example, using this technology, organisations can allow instant messaging, but block file transfers which may be a source of vulnerability, or allow Facebook access, but block access to unproductive Facebook-based games.
“In this way organisations can very tightly control application usage, allowing access to specific sites while limiting available bandwidth for these applications instead of implementing a blanket ban. This control can be taken to a very granular level, with different steps of control. As an example, the marketing department may have access to YouTube where HR does not, and the whole organisation may have limited bandwidth available for Facebook, but the CEO may be permitted to access any site and always have bandwidth priority,” says Honnay.
Organisations with distributed networks, such as university campuses, hospitals and dispersed enterprises, with multiple branches, can also use Next-Generation Firewall technology to filter internal traffic as well. Monitoring external traffic only is no longer enough, since potential threats can originate from within a network just as easily, so providing internal scanning ensures that all traffic is cleared for threats without impacting on the performance of the network.
“Aside from managing wired connections, the Next-Generation Firewall combines the capability to manage wireless connectivity as well, applying the same rules and enforcing the same policies for user authentication, bandwidth prioritisation and so on. This is becoming increasingly important given the consumerisation of IT and the trend towards Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). With the right technology in place, this can easily be allowed without compromising network security,” Tassev adds.
The Next-Generation Firewall incorporates a host of functionality that has become vital in modern network security. Some of these capabilities include control of the applications that are permitted on the network, management of bandwidth for critical applications and blocking of unproductive applications, or even just components of unproductive applications. This technology also allows for the visualisation of application traffic, identification of connections by country of origin and prevention of data leaks by stopping information marked as confidential from leaving the corporate networks.
While Next-Generation Firewalls have become vital to security in the modern organisation, they are just a stepping stone on the path towards true network optimisation. Once the functionality of the Firewall has been incorporated, WAN acceleration can be included to optimise WAN links and side to side connectivity, improving performance while maintaining the highest security standards.
Jasco Broadcast Solutions, a division of Jasco Carrier Networks, recently concluded a partnership agreement to represent world-renowned Front Porch Digital product offerings as a reseller in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, including Southern and Eastern Africa; as well as Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Front Porch Digital is the global leader in content storage management (CSM) as well as in migration and preservation of videotape to digital files. The company delivers end-to-end solutions for cost-effectively digitising, accessing, and preserving media and accelerating the migration of videotape to optimised and secure digital storage. Negotiations for this agreement began in March 2011 and were concluded in August, enabling Jasco to become a reseller of Front Porch Digital's products in the region.
"Jasco Broadcast Solutions represents products to address the entire range of broadcasting needs for the production, post production and broadcaster market, from capture to production and through to transmission. Front Porch Digital is well respected internationally with a reputation for quality, high-end solutions. Their offering fills a gap in our portfolio as it fits in well with our existing products and enables us to add digital archiving and storage, along with other management and migration solutions to our product offering," says Steve Lauter, Sales Manager, Jasco Broadcast Solutions.
The Front Porch Digital range consists of DIVASolutions, three product categories that can be integrated to migrate, manage, and market media content securely and efficiently. DIVASolutions SAMMA products are the first of their kind to automate digitisation of videotape, moving content into secure, accessible, and searchable digital storage. DIVArchive and DIVAdirector are trusted solutions for scalable and reliable CSM that enable digital file-based workflows to operate seamlessly across multiple sites.
Award-winning DIVApublish is a unique, cloud-based service that combines automated creation of frame-level metadata with online distribution.
"While the traditional boundaries between broadcasting and IT have blurred over the years, the broadcast market still maintains some very specific needs. Our solutions have been built from scratch to meet the needs of this market, are highly scalable and designed specifically for distributed architectures," says Bertrand Farabet, Solution Architect, Front Porch Digital.
"By partnering with Jasco Broadcast Solutions, who are well known in the market in the African region, we are now able to increase our footprint and access new markets that we have had limited success within the past. Having a local presence in the market is vital to reach our target customers, and the team at Jasco is skilled with sound knowledge of the industry and the specific products and systems used in this market. We will also now be able to offer Level 1 support in the region to provide better customer service,"
he adds.
For Jasco's customers, this partnership adds another option to the company's bouquet of solutions and enables the Group to expand its offering into the broadcast specific archiving space with a solution from an internationally respected company with a solid brand reputation. The Jasco Broadcast Solutions team has received high level sales and technical training on the entire Front Porch Digital suite and members of the team will be sent to Front Porch Digital headquarters in France in November this year for further training.
"Leveraging the powerful synergies within the Jasco Group as a whole, we will also be able to extend this product offering to include hosted and cloud services through our co-location data centre facility. We aim to become a point of presence for Front Porch Digital's recently announced cloud services offering, and we are looking forward to the opportunities this brings to the Jasco Group," Lauter concludes.
PC Tools products now available at Game and Dion Wired stores
25 January 2012
PC Tools, the value priced, multi-award winning security software solution, is now conveniently available from Game and Dion Wired stores nationwide. This thanks to a reseller agreement signed recently between the two store groups and distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC).
The PC Tools range of products has achieved many accolades, assuring customers of top quality solutions. The software offers the full spectrum of consumer computing security, from anti-virus, anti-spyware, internet security and firewall software to utility tools, all delivered at an affordable price point,” says Fred Mitchell, Software Division Manager at DCC.
“Since security is often a grudge purchase, affordability is of key concern. However, as the threats that arise from Internet and PC usage continue to proliferate, security has become more important than ever to protect users from cybercrime. PC Tools’ top quality products, which are well recognised by the IT industry, combined with a price point aimed at the budget conscious consumer, makes PC Tools the perfect security solution,” he adds.
By distributing PC Tools products through well-known retailers Game and Dion Wired, DCC is able to not only take advantage of their broad customer base, but also to complement the product offerings of both stores with a niche tool that addresses a gap in the local market for quality, affordable security solutions.
“For consumers, PC Tools is an affordable, easy to use solution. By supplying Game and Dion Wired with these products we are offering consumers greater choice when it comes to selecting a security solution to meet their needs,” says Mitchell.
“As PC Tools is a relatively new product in South Africa, we are still trying to grow awareness of the brand. Large retailers such as Game and Dion Wired have the consumer trust we need to enable us to grow the product. We will also be providing training for staff at both stores to enable them to match products to consumer needs,” he adds.
These solutions are well recognised within the IT industry and have won numerous awards, including Anti Virus Solution of the Year at the 2010 Computing Security Awards for PC Tools AntiVirus 2011, PC World 100 Best Products of 2010 and PC World Best Buy for PC Tools Internet Security 2011. They also won a softwareload Software of the Year 2010 award for PC Tools Registry Mechanic 2011.
Both Game and Dion Wired stores will be stocking PC Tools Antivirus and PC Tools Internet Security products. These are available at a recommended retail price of R89.99 and R119.99 respectively for a three user license, offering excellent value for money.
18 November 2011
Binary Tree’s E2E Complete 2.0 is the Smart, Fast and Simple Solution for Upgrading to Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Consolidating Exchange Systems
16 January 2012