Enterprise Linux solutions provider SUSE South Africa has appointed Johannesburg-based Linux Warehouse, which also services Africa markets, as a formally accredited distributor for SUSE. 
Linux Warehouse managing director Jan-Jan van der Vyver believes the South African market provides significant potential for the growth of Linux solutions.
“Based on our experience as a distributor we believe that SUSE is capable of 35% growth in this market. There are unique opportunities for SUSE with SAP, in the retail arena with the point-of-service solution and with the IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL).”
Linux Warehouse is very active in the banking, financial, healthcare, government, retail, telecoms, motoring, education, engineering and ICT/Technology market segments and sees good potential for increasing sales in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda.
“We have plans for extending our African footprint and have made an internal appointment that focuses on Africa, as well as marketing campaigns targeting Africa. Initially most of our SUSE-based growth will be coming from South Africa but we expect the Africa numbers to grow significantly over the next few years,” adds Van der Vyver.
“Already we have more than 100 active resellers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa which provides us with a great footprint from which to launch SUSE.”
SUSE offers economical technology that is free from “vendor lock in” for companies reliant on IT solutions.
According to Matthew Lee, regional manager for SUSE in South Africa, the strength of the product is being clearly demonstrated across a growing number of commercial and industrial sectors.
“Enterprises in these verticals can benefit from Open Source Linux solutions in terms of optimisation and innovation. The appointment of Linux Warehouse is great news for SUSE as Linux Warehouse is the only open source focussed distributor in Africa and brings great selling skills into the channel.”
Lee adds that SUSE is experiencing good growth in South Africa and that enterprise open source Linux offers cost efficiency and competitive advantages.
“With its focus on SUSE, Linux Warehouse has extended its client and reseller base and is well placed to further boost SUSE sales.”