Vodacom launches Microsoft Office in the cloud

Vodacom announced a partnership with Cisco and NIL today (9 November 2011) to launch the first office in the cloud offering in South Africa.

‘Vodacom Office in the Cloud’ uses virtualization technology and hosted applications to bring enterprise class IT services to local business.

This offering will allow organisations to rent office and productivity applications using a thin client terminal. Customers will have a choice to use Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems.

Through the terminal users can access Vodacom’s application portal which will provision product suites, including Microsoft Office Professional and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP.

Vodacom is also in discussions with financial and human resources based application vendors to extend their package.

Rental prices start at R600 per user, per month, and will be calculated according to the applications chosen from the application portal.

Richard Vester, Executive Head, Hosted Services, Vodacom, said that the solution has been used without VoIP on EDGE networks without any capacity issues. “When using voice and video services a 512kb ADSL capacity would typically be a minimum requirement,” said Vester.