KAZ keen on software-as-service

"We're right in the middle of doing a datacentre/hosting review as we speak," the company's chief executive officer, Mike Foster, told journalists this morning.

Software as a service is a delivery model where applications are typically hosted by a third party and provided to end-users over a network. Customers normally pay on an ongoing basis to use the software rather than buying it for a one-off cost.

Foster said one of KAZ's biggest challenges at the moment was keeping up with the demand for hosted services.

"I'm not just talking about the co-location business. I'm talking about more complex customers that want to have applications," he said.

Foster said KAZ saw itself as capable of providing more products using the software as a service delivery model -- up to a point.

"As to running the infrastructure, maintaining the infrastructure and the network, and all the associated sort of things, that's where KAZ will be.

"You'll see us in software as a service, but if someone said 'oh and by the way, this big SAP environment, come and set up all my accounts and everything else,' we'd probably stop short at that," the CEO said.

Some of KAZ's first products along these lines were launched this morning as the company unveiled a five-year partnership with security vendor Symantec.

The two will deliver managed desktop antivirus, e-mail gateway security and managed secure Web content filtering services in a deal billed as being the first of its kind signed by Symantec.

Executives from KAZ travelled to the United States earlier this year to finalise the deal with Symantec CEO John Thompson.

Foster said on Symantec's side the deal was exclusive to KAZ but the integrator would still work with other security vendors: "We have done work with just about most of the security vendors. Sometimes you inherit them, so we still will work with them on a customer-specific basis."

"But where we want to go to market on a more unified manner, we're doing this with Symantec," he said.

Foster said Symantec was chosen, among other reasons, for its leadership in security products.

"Secondly -- and don't underestimate this -- is a willingness for the two companies to work together," he said. He noted KAZ had also received advances from other companies for similar partnerships.