BotswanaPost dumps Cloudseed for BoFiNet

Launched in 2013, BotswanaPost’s product, Poso Cloud is facing a review following its underperformance in the market as expected, Botswana Guardian has established.

Sources close to BotswanaPost have told Botswana Guardian that the parastatal did not succeed with the Poso Cloud - a collaborative effort by BotswanaPost and Cloud Seed company. Cloudseed is a connectivity, ICT and cloud solutions organisation with headquarters in South Africa and has a subsidiary in Botswana, Cloudseed Botswana.

The WiFi dubbed PosoCloud first went live at BotswanaPost headquarters and the Sir Seretse Khama international Airport in Gaborone when it was first launched in 2013. It is understood that Statistics Botswana was the first of a number of potential major clients to come on board to utilise this technological solution.

The product was expected to provide reliable, affordable high speed Internet connectivity and cloud solutions and is targeted at users ranging from SMMEs to major enterprises. The partnership has long been dropped about a year ago. At the time of ending the partnership, Statistics Botswana was the only major client and the shopping malls and the airport.

It is understood that BoFiNet came up with a less capital-intensive solution. “Broadband became so much cheaper than the VSAT solution that Cloudseed offered and which was also the mainstay of the deal. BoFiNet is a wholesale retailer of broadband selling to ISPs from which BotswanaPost is now working to enter into partnership with,” reveals the source.

Botswana Guardian has also learnt that the two are in proof of concept stage and soon the revamped Poso Cloud will be presented. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the nature of partnership with Cloudseed was such that BotswanaPost does not pay for anything to Cloudseed; but rather does marketing and advertising as well as brings it brand goodwill. Cloudseed took care of the technology setting up costs.  As a result, the source says BotswanaPost has not lost anything in this deal.

This partnership collapse has since left the hotspots inactive, as well as for corporate clients such as Statistics Botswana. BotswanaPost Head of Corporate Communications, Lebogang Bok, confirmed to this publication in an interview that, the product has not been doing well despite a good reception from the market on launching the product.

“We are currently reviewing the product positioning in terms of packaging, pricing, and partnerships in line with market developments. We will provide an update upon completion of the product review,” Bok revealed.

Bok said that, “However, the ever fast paced market trends, especially anything ICT related necessitated a rethink if we are to meet public expectations.”

As the Post consolidates its strategy and expands its technology based offering, the expectation is that revenues will continue to rise while gross profitability will dip on the back of higher costs. The Post aims to attain its goal of becoming a P500million revenue company by end of this financial year (2016).