The region as businesses move to IT

Demand for cloud computing elements is rising in the region as businesses move to IT and increase the reliance of business processes on IT. This has seen more data centers being planned with a few already up and running, the biggest being Equity's Bank Data center which has 77 racks with capacity for another 50 - 70.

Meanwhile, APC is as well defending its lead in the home and small business networks. Some of the measures that APC has taken include investment in a swap center predominantly for single phase products. This will result in reduced delays in replacement for parts taken to APC warranty centers.

Arlene Nazareth, Territory Account Manager for APC East Africa said electrical distribution makes up for APC's main business segment with automation and control, plus critical power and cooling being the other segment.

APC made revenue of $ 3.6 Billion in 2008 contributing to Schneider Electric's $24 Billion revenue for the same year. Schneider Electric bought out APC in 2007 and spun out the single phase business which was at that time bought by Eaton, their main competitor. Schneider Electric had previously bought out MGE in 2003 which is nevertheless maintained as one of their brands.

APC offers three distinct choices where consumers choose between price, value or performance. APC has as well designed its products in a manner that they can easily be scaled. The Smart UPS range targets those who are price conscious and can be scaled from 10 kVA. The Galaxy range has scalable sets between 40 - 800 kVA. The Galaxy range as well connects to various interfaces including USB, serial, network and industrial interfaces.

Some of the factors that may drive firms towards the acquisition of the Symmetra PX ranges include rapid changes in IT innovation that makes blade servers suitable. The blade servers can at that time be placed in the racks. A data center can start with a few servers, power and cooling equipment and scale up as it determines its demands.

Other concerns include businesses conscious of their energy and service costs. The use of multicore CPUs and virtualization of servers has led to servers been more heavily utilised than previously. This means that servers are however using more power and dissipating more heat than earlier.