Microsoft recognises Nigeria channel partner MainOne

Microsoft Nigeria at its Partner’s Award in Lagos recognised Signal Alliance and MainOne for delivering solutions in the 2016 fiscal year spanning July 2015 through to June 2016. The Microsoft Partners Award is an initiative of Microsoft Nigeria to appreciate partners for their commitment to Microsoft business as well as supporting the digital transformation drive in the country.

Connectivity and data center solutions company MainOne, has won the Microsoft Country Manager’s Partner of the Year Award for Nigeria, during the Microsoft Partner Network Awards held in Lagos recently. The Country Manager’s Partner of the Year Award recognises a partner that was fully aligned to Microsoft’s priorities during the 2016 financial year and has over achieved in one or more of the transformational pillars of Microsoft: personal computing, intelligent cloud and reinventing productivity. The choice of MainOne this year reinforces the company as a leader in enterprise cloud and data center solutions in Nigeria.

“We are pleased to recognise MainOne as this year’s Winner of the 2016 Microsoft Country Manager’s Partner of the Year Award,” said Oluwawemimo Adeniyi, Director Small Midmarket Solutions and Partners, Microsoft Nigeria. “MainOne is a classic example of the excellent resource we see in our Microsoft partner ecosystem to deliver innovative and transformative solutions to our mutual customers.”

In his comments while receiving the award, MainOne’s Chief Information Security Officer, Chidinma Iwe, said “We are honoured to be recognised by Microsoft as Country Partner of the Year. Since January 2015, when we launched our Tier III data center, we have worked with Microsoft to provide cloud-based solutions to our customers. This award cannot have come at a more opportune time than this, as it demonstrates the value we bring to our customers by helping them improve organisational efficiency at competitive costs during these challenging times.

“With MainOne’s cloud technology, enterprises can leverage the latest solutions available on the Microsoft Azure platform or host locally to enhance their business with minimal expenditure as majority of the capital expenditure is borne by the cloud host, being MainOne. The platform enables Infrastructure as a service, a solution MainOne offers to customers in finance, e-commerce and oil and gas sectors who need their data domiciled in Nigeria.”

“The cloud technology is also built to enable MainOne to offer Cloud Connect, a solution that provides enterprises with dedicated connectivity to their Microsoft Office 365 and other web services offshore including Amazon web services. In addition, MainOne enables other cloud business partners to host their solutions on our platform allowing them to go to market quicker knowing that their hardware environment is managed by the Tier III MainOne Data center MDXi.”

“MainOne is proud to build up the region’s low technology footprint. In addition to the Microsoft Country Manager’s Partner of the Year Award, we have received other awards including the PCI DSS and ISO 9001 and 27001 certifications, Frost & Sullivan Nigerian Data Centre Customer Value Leadership Award, African Information Technology and Telecoms Awards, Telecoms Wholesale Provider of the Year and Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry Award for Excellence in Broadband Infrastructure, among others,” Iwe concluded.

In the Competency category, Signal Alliance was awarded the Cloud Productivity Partner of the Year Award, over both Reliance InfoSystem Limited and Ha-Shem Network. In the Strategic Category Awards, Signal Alliance team also received the Cloud Excellence Partner of the Year Award.

In May this year, Microsoft announced the winners and finalists of the Microsoft 2016 Partner of the Year Awards. The annual awards recognise top Microsoft partners demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

This year, Microsoft acknowledged partners in 37 categories celebrating each of the core partner competencies, including cloud technology, public sector, citizenship and many more. The award finalists and winners were selected from more than 2,500 nominations collected from 119 different countries worldwide based on their commitment to customers, their solution’s impact on the market and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies.

“The 2016 Partner of the Year Award winners and finalists represent the most innovative and transformative work being done across our partner community,” said Gavriella Schuster, General Manager, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft. “It is important to recognise and celebrate the value and opportunity these solutions create for our mutual customers. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and finalists on this tremendous achievement.”