Oracle and Orange (www.Orange.com) today announced that they have signed a collaboration agreement as part of a joint plan to accelerate cloud-led digital transformation in West Africa.

Under the agreement, the two companies will assess plans to build Oracle Cloud regions (https://bit.ly/2ZATWqB) using Orange’s infrastructure in Senegal and Ivory Coast. This aligns with a common objective of ensuring that all customer data is hosted locally, providing customers with cloud services that meet their data latency and performance requirements.

The companies also announced plans to jointly offer cloud services for enterprises and public sector organizations in the West Africa, starting with offerings in Senegal and Ivory Coast. For this initiative, Orange plans to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to complement its portfolio of enterprise-grade managed cloud services.

Orange has an extensive footprint in West Africa, reaching more than 130 million customers in the region, and its B2B services are supported by its extensive network as well as capabilities including Internet of Things, applications, cybersecurity, cloud, and data center management. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, with its built-in security, high performance and availability, is ideally suited for mission-critical and cloud-native workloads in enterprise and public sector environments.

The planned joint go-to-market model is intended to support West African enterprises and public organizations in addressing the challenge of digital transformation through advanced cloud services, enabling operational efficiency, lower costs, and high security standards.

The two companies also plan to collaborate on a project to migrate part of Orange’s internal applications onto Oracle Cloud in order to generate greater efficiencies through digitalization, particularly in administrative processes. Discussions are ongoing to jointly define the scope, conditions and feasibility of this strategic step, which has the potential to generate considerable synergies across the Group’s footprint in the region.

Finally, Oracle and Orange intend to jointly promote their health solutions, especially in the area of vaccination. Such cooperation has the potential to bring considerable benefits to local populations, particularly in the light of the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, through a fully-digitalized process and improved stock management.

“We strongly believe that digital technology is a catalyst for economic transformation on the African continent, contributing to sustainable employment and socio-economic development. Cloud infrastructure is one of the key solutions Orange brings to companies and public institutions in its role as a multi-service operator. Oracle’s industry-recognized solutions should bring additional value to Orange’s Cloud portfolio,” said Alioune Ndiaye, Chairman and CEO, Orange Middle-East and Africa.

“With improved bandwidth access, and increased awareness of the benefits of cloud computing, organizations in the West and Sub-Saharan Africa region have begun exploring migrating workloads to the cloud. This initiative with Orange is an important step toward introducing world-class cloud infrastructure in the region,” said Clay Magouyrk, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“As organizations in West Africa start their digital transformations, we look forward to joining with Orange to offer a rich portfolio of cloud infrastructure services,” said Jonathan Tikochinsky, executive vice president, Global Strategic Clients Group at Oracle. “This partnership brings the power of Oracle’s OCI services and Orange’s extensive managed cloud services that will empower organizations to take advantage of the efficiency, cost savings and increased security that the cloud provides.”