IT positions – especially in cloud services – are expanding at a rate three-fold compared to national job opportunities, according to a recent Microsoft report in collaboration with IDC, “The Economic Impact of IT and Microsoft in South Africa.” The addition of Azure regions in this area will aid tech and cloud growth, with an estimated 112,000 additional jobs projected over the next four years in Johannesburg and Cape Town alone. 

Lionel Moyal, speaking to entrepreneurs and startups at the South African Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018, detailed the future of the region and displayed encouragement toward workers to “skill up” in cloud technologies, AI, development tools, machine learning, mobile technologies, noting that it will be needed with South Africa’s rapid tech expansion.  

That tech expansion is just that – new technology – and data centers in Africa mean more than just job growth. With the implementation of these data centers, South Africa will be able to nurture their security, growth and speed in the enterprise cloud space and small businesses alike. Their ability to store and manage data locally empowers South African businesses to adopt cloud services with peace of mind, especially in sensitive industries such as insurance that handle confidential personal information. 

And finally, with localized servers soon in place, latency between companies and their Azure infrastructure will undergo a world of change in speed and experience, allowing for a more mature cloud strategy. When it comes to migration projects, this is the biggest change. Immediately after these regions go live, MigrationWiz customers will be able to execute migrations using Azure data centers in Africa by selecting this region in Advanced Options prior to launching their project. That data will pass quickly and securely through local servers to its Destination. Let us know if we can help with your next project, or reach out to our friends at First Distribution to learn more about our work in South Africa to date. 

In order to succeed, new and established businesses across all industries need to unlock three essential doors: the technology door, the business development door, and the compliance and regulation door. Microsoft has brought the keys to South Africa with local data centers. We’re excited to see what the future holds for tech and tech startups in this region.