SecureData Africa, part of JSE-listed SecureData Holdings, has been appointed by Blue Coat System, the leading provider of business assurance technology, as a value-added distributor for the sub-Saharan African region.
This partnership brings Blue Coat’s portfolio of security and networking products, including its leading Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solution and patented optimisation technologies, to some of the most security-minded markets in the world.
Blue Coat has built a leading product portfolio targeted to meet the stringent requirements of enterprises and governments. SecureData Africa’s appointment will allow customers in sectors such as finance, utilities and the public sector to enjoy world-class protection at a time of heightened security.
Wayne Olsen, chief technology officer at SecureData Africa is excited about the new technology the partnership will bring to SecureData’s solutions offering.
“With its long history of protecting organisations, their data, and their employees, Blue Coat is the trusted brand to 15 000 customers worldwide. The partnership is truly synergistic in that it allows us to seamlessly bundle Blue Coat’s technology solutions with that of our other vendors to deliver greater value to our customers.
“With their optimisation technology, we make it possible for our customers to introduce new services without impacting the performance of the network,” comments Olsen.
In addition to leading web and mobile security, WAN optimization, and asymmetric acceleration technology, Olsen believes Blue Coat’s CacheFlow appliances, which provide advanced caching technology, will prove a key differentiator on a continent still struggling with the high cost of bandwidth.
“In addition to achieving a rapid return on investment (ROI) based on bandwidth and backhaul savings, caching appliances speed-up page load and download times by positioning content closer to the users, reducing upstream congestion, and eliminating extra ‘hops’ between the user and the origin server,” Olsen explains.
Further, Olsen is confident that Blue Coat’s high touch management team and strong support capabilities will do much to enhance its end-to-end service offering.
“Blue Coat is a leader in security in established markets including Asia, America and Europe, where we empower businesses to adopt the best technologies available. Now it is time to bring these world-class capabilities to Africa. To do so, we need partners like SecureData Africa that have the skillsets and customer knowledge to prove the value of our solutions,” states Justin Lee, country manager, Blue Coat.