Microsoft has announced today that it is planning to open two datacenters in African cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, by 2018, so as to deliver Cloud Service across Africa. With these new datacentres, Microsoft will become the biggest cloud provider, having 40 cloud regions around the world.
In the official announcement, the company describes its plan as,
“We plan to deliver the Microsoft Cloud — including Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 — from datacenters located in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with initial availability in 2018. These new Microsoft Cloud regions will offer enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with data residency. Customers across Africa, including local startups and NGOs, will be able to use the cloud services delivered from these new regions to power innovation and opportunity for Africa and the world. “
This step will help Microsoft to reach another major milestone in their “A Cloud for Global Good” mission that aims to empower every organization on the planet. The company has planned to offer Microsoft Cloud as a medium of bringing access to training and education, developing job skills, and spreading digital literacy as well as software development skills among a population of more than 775 K in Africa.
Africa has been an ignored territory to the IT companies for a long time. Now, this bold step of Microsoft will help the continent to connect with the outer world in a powerful way.