Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, has entered into strategic partnership with ABC Data, an IT hardware and consumer electronics distributor in Central and Eastern Europe, to bring powerful, reliable and cost-effective cloud computing products and services to the CEE market in a bid to help local businesses capture opportunities during the digital age.
Under the partnership, ABC Data has become Alibaba Cloud’s distributor in Poland and seven other countries of the region: in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
The ABC Data Cloud platform will provide the full range of cloud products and services offered by Alibaba Cloud, including virtual servers, hosting, data backup and storage, network solutions, Internet-of-Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), via ABC Data Cloud, ABC Data’s proprietary e-commerce platform.
Polish companies that want to use the cloud solutions offered by Alibaba Cloud will have access to technical support in Polish. A customer’s data will be stored in the Alibaba Cloud data center in Frankfurt or, depending on the customer’s preferences, in one of 17 other Alibaba Cloud data centers around the world. Resellers of cloud solutions will also get comprehensive support, as well as the simplified and friendly procedure of communication, from the professionals of ABC Data trained by Alibaba Cloud.
Moreover, Alibaba Cloud will leverage its expertise in digital transformation and resources from Alibaba Group to provide tailored solutions to local businesses that aspire to expand their operations in China and the Asia Pacific region. Now, such solutions are becoming available to companies and organizations from Poland in particular, as well as other countries of the region.
According to IDC forecasts , in 2021 companies and public institutions from Central and Eastern Europe will spend USD 2.54 billion on public cloud services. This represents almost a two-fold increase compared to 2017, when USD 1.28 billion was allocated to cloud computing across the region. To meet the surging demand, in mid-2017 ABC Data launched ABC Data Cloud, an advanced e-commerce platform for distributing cloud services.
Toni Cheng, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Germany and CEE said: “We are very pleased to partner with a well-connected local partner such as ABC Data. The partnership marks an exciting step towards our goal of further advancing our technology and expanding our presence to Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. Alibaba Cloud aims to become the preferred cloud service provider for all size of businesses in the region by providing a full range of cloud solutions and helping them to extend their footprint in China and Asia.”
“We are constantly expanding our cloud portfolio, adding to it solutions offered by the industry’s leading vendors”, says Ilona Weiss, CEO of ABC Data Group. “Due to the fact that we’re operating directly in eight countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we can guarantee to our vendors that we will be able to reach the customers in this region. As one of the first European distributors, we launched cooperation with Alibaba Cloud and we will offer technologies of this key vendor and provider of cloud services through our partners in Poland and the entire region. We will provide access to the cutting edge solutions offered by Alibaba Cloud via ABC Data Cloud and we predict that more and more CEE companies will decide to move their IT resources to the cloud” – adds Ilona Weiss.
