PwC buys stake in local world-first IT company,
ATTIX5
Issued by: eStrategy
The South African arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the
world's largest financial services group, has acquired
a minority interest in Attix5, a local company that
has developed a painless, automatic, effective and
secure system for storing data and accessing it from
any Internet-connected device. The system, believed
to be a world first in terms of the features it offers,
has, says Colin Beggs, Chief Executive Officer of
PwC, good potential for moving into the international
market.
Beggs explains that the system, Backup5, protects
data that has hitherto been at the mercy of disk crashes,
laptop theft, hacking and white-collar fraud.
"PwC has been testing and checking Backup5 with
a view to implementing it within our own organisation,
both locally and internationally. We also believe
that commercial business will welcome the additional
security provided by the product."
Roelou Barry, Chief Executive Officer of Attix5,
points out that the market for the Internet storage
industry is expected to grow from $7m in 1999 to $2,7
bn in 2004.
"Against this background, it is a source of
concern to every business organisation that more than
50% of critical business data is currently generated
and stored on remote desktop and laptop devices,"
says Barry.
He notes that the concern stems from the spiraling
capital expenditure on storage equipment, an increasing
dependence on user compliance, the overburdening of
expensive IT resources and a decreasing control of
corporate data.
Automatic critical data storage
"Aware of the global need to reduce capex requirements,
the mundane IT workload and a reliance on users, we
developed Backup5 with a view to increasing system
automation, data security levels, user access to stored
data and total corporate control over data."
Barry emphasises that Backup5 is the ultimate in automatic
critical data storage, encapsulating:
* Automatic back-ups of all critical data.
* 24/7/365 data access and recovery to any point
in time.
* Remote access to back-up and recovery procedures.
* Centralised control and aggregation of valuable
company data.
* Secure encryption and storage of sensitive data.
* Easy installation, deployment, control and use.
* Reduced file server and network loads.
In short, says Barry: "All the data, all the
time, automatically. Anywhere, anytime access.
