The leadership of Obsidian Systems reflects on 25 years in the market and the company’s service since the first installation of Linux. A leading open technology solutions provider, the company has progressed and evolved since that first installation.
The management at Obsidian Systems are proud people – they recently toasted 25 years in the market, cementing the company’s position as the oldest open source business in Africa.
Muggie van Staden, MD of Obsidian Systems, recalls the first Linux installation at then client Nandos. He said it’s remarkable how far the company has progressed and how it has steadily evolved into an enterprise-facing open solutions specialist services provider.
At the core of the company’s value proposition is the desire to affect positive change in business, through the advantage of ubiquitous technology for companies that want to be open and want to share within an ecosystem.
“We are vendor agnostic,” said van Staden. “We want to show the market how things work, what works best or is the best fit for the job, from a technology point of view. Our passion is for solutions that are designed to provide the best, whenever and wherever required.”
Obsidian knows it has the technical expertise, the market experience, the resources and intellectual capital to help clients with teams, code, data and managed services across all levels, as well as hybrid cloud.
“There are many factors and features that are associated with these areas of service delivery and technical capability. We believe we have the right skills and industry know-how to add value to our client base and ensure that they are at the top of their game when it comes to technology investment and application in the market, particularly with the increased focus on cloud, data analytics, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things,” said van Staden.
The company’s confidence is backed up by its approach to, and continued investment in, strategic industry-leading partnerships.
Van Staden said the company has increased its partnership profile, underlining the fact that Obsidian Systems has a shareholding in Guruhut, enabling the company to capitalise on Java expertise and financial services. Guruhut provides integration and Atlassian services into banks and has extensive coding capability with specialised resources for banks to integrate.
Additionally, Obsidian also partnered with Autumn Leaf which, as van Staden explains, affords them a massive opportunity with Hadoop, data analytics and cloud expertise.
“Recognising an opportunity with Hadoop Obsidian Systems is partnering with Cloudera – which has significant insight and knowledge about Big Data and continuously innovating their platform to meet market changes,” adds van Staden.
This approach to collaboration and an unconditional take on expertise and skills development where it counts helps to keep the company ahead of the competition.
However, it is also Obsidian’s smarter strategy, covering strategy, architecture, resources and training, that has reinforced its position in the market.
The company doesn’t only sell, it empowers teams and cross integrates technology solutions from agile methodologies to infrastructure automation, managed services, experts that practise DevOps and smarter hybrid IT.
“It would be fair to say that we were ahead of our time and have really embraced the role as visionary and unrivalled open source and managed services specialist trusted advisor,” said van Staden.
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