East London has entered the information technology map overnight with tow major national IT companies launching their services to the region yesterday.
Black-owned Sonke Computer Services (SCS) Africa and Pinnacle Micro both indicated that the Buffalo City IT industry was booming, largely due to growing government spending, manufacturing and tourism.
SCS chief executive Ghandi Badela said he planned to open an office in East London by August. “It is the first time we introduce ourselves to the East London market. But here is a great business potential through manufacturers, the government and tourism businesses,” he said.
Through SCS Africa, new technology will be introduced to the region, like UK-based Achiever Business Solutions’ risk management systems and India-based Lattice Bridge’s Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system.
Lattice Bridge managing director, Mohan Ram said ASR could be used by illiterate people as a means to surf the Internet.
“It is also an option during the 2010 Soccer World Cup to supply information to foreign visitors in their own language,” he said.
Last night IT vendor Pinnacle Micro officially launched its first East London office. It has been trading in the city for the past three months.
Pinnacle regional sales manager, Gary Smith said they opened an office in the city to cash in on the Border region’s economic growth. Historically we supplied this region through our Port Elizabeth office, but that creates an added courier cost to the end price of the product. With us moving here there will be a saving” he said.