sunflash-Distributed to mailing list sun/NC/north-carolina sunflash-Send requests, problems to owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Sun Opens Office in South Africa SunFLASH Vol 63 #103 March 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 63.103 Sun Opens Office in South Africa Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) announced that its Intercontinental Division has opened an office in Midrand, South Africa. Situated midway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, SMCC's office in Midrand will serve as a central support site for the company's five South African business partners along with its rapidly growing customer base. In particular, the office will focus on delivering technical, marketing, sales and support services. (112 lines) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although SMCC is still relatively new in southern Africa, it has experienced success there in such industries as banking and finance, transportation, geographic information systems (GIS), education and manufacturing. Recent wins in the region include the University of Witwatersrand, which has installed new Sun(R) computer hardware as the foundation for its migration from an IBM(R) mainframe to an open network architecture; South Africa's largest game reserve, Kruger National Park, which has adopted Sun equipment to manage its wildlife resources; and in the banking and finance arena, insurance companies such as Price Forbes, Liberty Life and IGI Life have rightsized their operations by moving mission-critical applications from proprietary systems to the Sun open network computing model. According to Abie Fullard, a South African national and SMCC's regional manager for southern Africa, the organization anticipates strong growth potential in the region. "Following next month's election, rebuilding infrastructure will be a priority. As South African businesses enter a global marketplace, their competitive pressures will increase. We believe Sun systems can help South African businesses become more cost-efficient and deliver strategic competitive advantage." Fullard also said that the opening of a South African office has been welcomed by SMCC's five local partners: RISC Solutions, Large Scale Systems, Lonnet, Rightsizing Technologies and Vector Network Computers. "Our partners will continue to act as our main distribution channels," he emphasized. "Our purpose is to get closer to these partners and to provide a higher level of support for our customers." Commenting on the establishment of an SMCC office in South Africa, Brian Neilson, a director of IT industry analysts BMI-TechKnowledge/IDC South Africa, said it was a very positive move. "For a company of Sun's stature to make such a move at a time of considerable political turmoil in the country reinforces the high level of business confidence that currently exists," he said. "From Sun's point of view, it is bound to result in an improved perception of the level of professionalism with which their market is being addressed." Sun Microsystems, Inc., with $4.3 billion in revenue in 1993, derives nearly half its revenue from outside the United States and has offices or distributors in 145 worldwide locations. Although Sun is No. 120 on the Fortune 500, the computer/office equipment category of Fortune magazine's Global 500 listing ranks Sun as the third most profitable company in the world in terms of profits as a percentage of sales and assets. Sun moved up to No. 395 from 429 in the most recent "Guide to the Global 500." Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC), the world's top supplier of open network computing solutions, is an operating company of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Built on Sun's legacy of "The Network is the Computer(TM)," SMCC's SPARC(R)/Solaris(R) workstation and server family leads the UNIX market. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. # # # Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, and the Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks, including the SCD Compliant logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. 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