Anthony Same [ST Digital] : "The opening of our subsidiary in RDC was one of the highlights of the year 2023"

[DIGITAL Business Africa] – The CEO of ST DIGITAL provides further details on the Cloud services recently launched by his company.

DIGITAL Business Africa: Last year ST DIGITAL launched a 100% African Cloud. What exactly does this involve?

Anthony Same: The 100% African Cloud is a cloud service offering available across all of Francophone Africa, operated from Tier 3 Data Centers located in Africa (Douala, Abidjan, Libreville, Brazzaville). This offering, accessible on our CloudStore.Africa platform, is the first 100% African cloud service platform in Cameroun.
It enables users to access services such as web hosting, virtual servers, domain names, and email addresses. This platform is designed to meet the digital transformation needs of businesses and individuals at all levels, from beginners to experts, and is available at affordable rates.

DIGITAL Business Africa: How will this new solution be able to add value for African companies in general and Cameroonian companies in particular?

Anthony Same: The CloudStore.africa platform is an innovative solution designed to provide African businesses in general, and Cameroonian businesses in particular, with easy and secure access to cloud services. Thanks to this CloudStore, it is now possible to store our data in Cameroun in accordance with international standards of quality, security, and performance.

The advantage of CloudStore.africa is also to offer a domain name with the local extension of your country, quickly, securely and reliably. "In Cameroun, for example, obtaining a domain name with the .cm extension is instantaneous directly from the website. The same applies to acquiring an email address with the aforementioned extension."

Local hosting in Cameroun also has the advantage of offering better latency for cloud application services and greater resilience during submarine fibre optic outages.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What types of solutions or services does ST DIGITAL offer?

Anthony Same: The services offered by ST Digital include digital transformation, infrastructure and cloud, cybersecurity, business solutions, collaborative work, and training. Digital transformation provides comprehensive support through digital transformation consulting.

Infrastructure and cloud services offer hosting and colocation for your enterprise infrastructures and applications. Cybersecurity ensures business continuity by strengthening the protection of your data and infrastructures. ERP business solutions help improve the productivity of your operations through tailored solutions.

Collaborative working enables your employees to benefit from the latest technological advances in collaboration and mobility. Finally, Training ensures the upskilling of your teams, users, and managers. ST DIGITAL is also the first 100% African Cloud service provider with its Cloud service platform called Cloudstore.africa.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What are the difficulties you encounter?

Anthony Same: We face two types of difficulties, or rather challenges. Internal challenges around the development and retention of talent. External challenges relating to the collection timeframe for our receivables and the lack of support from the authorities for our activities, which are nonetheless essential to the development of a local digital ecosystem.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What are your objectives with the launch of this new Cloud?

Anthony Same: ST Digital's objectives in launching the 100% African cloud are multiple. First and foremost, ST Digital aims to offer a local alternative to the cloud services provided by the major digital players.
Furthermore, ST Digital seeks to offer affordable cloud services tailored to the needs of African businesses and individuals.
Finally, ST Digital aims to contribute to the digital transformation of Africa by offering high-performance, secure cloud services to businesses and individuals at all levels.

By providing a 100% African cloud service platform, ST Digital helps strengthen Africa's digital sovereignty and protect users' data against the risks of hacking and surveillance.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What are ST Digital's performances as of December 31, 2023?

Anthony Same: In terms of performance, we can highlight the key milestones of 2023, such as the opening of our subsidiary in RDC. We were present at major tech events such as Vivatech, as well as at Data Centre World, and as the question of data sovereignty is at the forefront of every country's concerns, we are contributing our part by offering a cloud service platform based in Cameroun and operated by Cameroonians: cloudstore.africa.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What is your assessment of the digital sector in Cameroun?

Anthony Same: The digital sector in Cameroun is experiencing rapid growth, with increasing adoption of technology and the Internet across the country. Social media is also very popular in Cameroun.

This sector offers numerous employment opportunities in Cameroun, with companies such as ST DIGITAL. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and blockchain are also beginning to gain traction in Cameroun, offering employment opportunities for experts in these fields.

DIGITAL Business Africa: What are your prospects?

Anthony Same: ST Digital plans to expand its service portfolio and extend its presence to new markets and regions. If we consider adoption and integration, which is part of our service offerings, remaining competitive leads us to include new areas such as artificial intelligence…

Establishing partnerships with other technology companies to access new skills, technologies, or markets. Providing excellent customer service and maintaining strong relationships with our clients, which naturally leads to repeat business and referrals.

It should be noted that we cannot satisfy clients without sufficiently solid resources, which leads us to invest in the training of our staff to maintain a high level of competence and expertise.

SOURCE: DIGITAL Business Africa

Anthony Same [ST Digital] announces the opening of a subsidiary in RDC (digitalbusiness.africa)

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