Microsoft Selects Ghana As Regional Hub

Microsoft has selected Ghana as its hub for West Africa because of the country's improved infrastructure for Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

The General Manager of Microsoft in charge of Nigeria and Ghana, Mr Gerald Ilukwe, said the government had also shown commitment to develop the industry to facilitate a revolution in ICT.

In an interview after the launch of three computer servers in Accra, the SQL Server 2005, the Visual Studio 2005 and the BizTalk Server 2006, Mr Ilukwe said the government had made a conscious effort towards the development of ICT in the country.

He said Ghana had the building blocks for a technology-driven society in place, adding that “Microsoft would like to be part of the move to make Ghana take its position in the information superhighway”.

He said the launch of the three servers would provide solutions to some of the challenges facing industry and commerce and said organisations today were faced with several data challenges, including the proliferation of data and systems across their enterprises.

Ms Ejieke Maduka-Dugwa, Server Production Manager for West, East and Central Africa, in a presentation, said building on the strengths of SQL Servers would provide an integrated data management and analysis solution that would help organisations of any size to build and deploy enterprise applications that were more secure and reliable.

She said the new product would also help maximise the productivity of IT by reducing the complexity of creating, deploying and managing database applications.