ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) announced on Monday it is collaborating with DETASAD, a Saudi-German joint venture and a leading contributor to the ICT sector of Saudi Arabia, to establish a digital cloud marketplace in Pakistan.

The collaboration was announced at an e-signing ceremony by Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, Secretary IT and Telecom and Chairman Board of Director, PTCL, Eng. Nawaf Alhoshan, Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Saudi Arabia, and Hisham Al Sheikh, Deputy CEO YESSER Saudi e-Govt. Program. 

“With a track record of 38 years, DETASAD (DETECON Al Saudia Co. Ltd.) is the first international player to take the lead in Pakistan and collaborate with PTCL to launch public cloud platform,” PTCL said in a statement. “This will be the first of its kind international collaboration, where data is going to be hosted locally in Pakistan with PTCL rated-3 Certified Data Center.”

“With its enterprise-grade & cost-effective services, Cloud Market Place will offer its customers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) on a highly scalable and secure public Cloud platform,” the statement said. “The flexible Cloud will offer a rich catalogue, backed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA), making it an attractive offer for businesses. It will also provide a self-service portal and will bring Pakistan's first digital Cloud marketplace with a huge range of products and services. It has been designed to be performance optimized and affordable, therefore will provide the customer with the solution to transform their traditional IT infrastructure to a modern and scalable Cloud-based infrastructure.”

Speaking on the occasion, Eng. Nawaf Alhoshan, Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Saudi Arabia, said:

“This partnership is an example of the importance of collaboration and cooperation in the digital world between governments, between companies, and most critical, between public and private sector … Today, we reach out to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The partnership between the two companies is an extension of the synergies between our two countries, and the synergies between Digital Saudi with Vision 2030 and Digital Pakistan. The partnership is also a living example of how digital bridges between people and nations. Together, the two companies will participate and drive digital transformation across Pakistan as they rollout Cloud Marketplace.”