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Africa Telecoms brings you all the latest telecoms news from Africa and around the world.
GooGle Gmail ‘viable alternative to microsoft’ After being in the market for five years, Google’s enterprise Gmail is building momentum with commercial organisations with more than 5,000 seats, and it now presents a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange Online and other cloud email services, according to Gartner, Inc. “The road to its enterprise enlightenment has been long and bumpy, but Gmail should now be considered a mainstream cloud email supplier,” said Matthew Cain, research vice president at Gartner. “While Gmail’s enterprise email market share currently hovers around 1%, it has close to half of the market for enterprise cloud email. While cloud email is still in its infancy, at 3% to 4% of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20% of the market by year-end 2016, and 55% by year-end 2020.” Cain said that, other than Microsoft Exchange, Google Gmail is the only email system that has prospered in the enterprise space over the past several years. Other enterprise email providers – Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino – have lost market momentum, Cisco has closed its cloud email effort and VMware’s Zimbra is only now refocusing on the enterprise space. Google’s journey to enterprise enlightenment, however, is not complete. Google focuses on capabilities that will have the broadest market uptake. Large organisations with complex
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email requirements, such as financial institutions, report that Google is resistant to feature requests that would be applicable to only a small segment of its customers. Banks, for example, may require surveillance capabilities that Google is unlikely to build into Gmail given the limited appeal. While Google is good at taking direction and input on frontend features, it is more resistant to the back-end feature requests that are important to larger enterprises. Large system integrators and organisations report that Google’s lack of transparency in areas such as continuity, security and compliance can thwart deeper relationships. “Email is not a commodity, and cloud email is still maturing,” Cain said. “We believe that, for most organisations, performing one more on-premises upgrade, which will take an organisation through 2014, is the most prudent approach. A less risky approach to cloud email is via a hybrid deployment, where some mailboxes live in the cloud and some are located on premises. This hybrid model plays to Microsoft’s strengths given its vast dominance of the on-premises email market.” “The intense competition between Microsoft and Google will make both vendors stronger and enable them to apply cloud expertise to other enterprise cloud endeavours,” Cain said. “The rivalry will make it difficult for other suppliers to compete directly in the cloud email and collaboration space.” AT
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eaton towers secures $150 million equity fundinG
Eaton Towers has secured a major round of equity funding worth $150 million from Capital International Private Equity Funds (CIPEF), a private equity investor that focuses on emerging markets. The funding will be used to acquire, build and develop telecom towers across Africa for both existing and new projects. CIPEF is a highly experienced and long established emerging markets private equity investor. Since its inception in 1992, it has invested approximately $3 billion in equity in more than 75 emerging market companies and has significant experience in telecommunications and related infrastructure in emerging markets. CIPEF joins current shareholder African Development Partners I LLP (ADP I), a private equity fund advised by Development Partners International, LLP (DPI), which has been a supportive investor in Eaton Towers since the early stages of the company’s existence. Alan Harper, Chief Executive of Eaton Towers, said: “We are delighted to have secured substantial financial backing from CIPEF, a leading emerging markets private equity investor with a proven track record in the region and the industry. Their backing, combined with our management team’s expertise in Africa and telecoms management, will give further momentum to our efforts to become a major independent
provider of shared tower facilities across Africa. We expect to raise significant additional debt on the back of this new equity commitment. “Tower sharing benefits everyone involved. Operators can increase coverage and quality of service whilst cutting capital investment and operating costs. At the same time, subscribers benefit from the increased competition of operators sharing the same tower, which also improves coverage.” The new funding will enable Eaton Towers to buy additional tower portfolios from operators and build new towers on which it will sell co-location and sharedinfrastructure facilities to mobile operators. Tower sharing is a highly cost-effective way for African operators to reach subscribers, with building and operating
costs typically shared across multiple tenants. In October 2010, Eaton Towers signed a 10-year contract to take over the operations and co-location management of 750 telecom towers for Vodafone Ghana and the company is well advanced on plans to extend its operations across other parts of Africa. Eaton was founded by a team of highly experienced telecoms entrepreneurs with significant expertise in the African telecoms market. The team includes Chief Executive Alan Harper, formerly on the Executive Committee of Vodafone Group Plc; Executive Director Terry Rhodes, former director of Celtel (now Bharti Airtel Africa); and Sanjiv Ahuja, formerly Chief Executive of Orange. AT
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