Sagent announces alliance with black empowerment company Webshad

Susan Andre2001

Real-time e-business solutions provider Sagent SA has announced an alliance with e-commerce and database management specialists Webshad. "Sagent's data warehouse competency and proven technology offerings combines well with Webshad's experience in the e-commerce and database market," says Paul Murphy, Sagent SA marketing director. "E-business relies on marketing and clickstream analysis to align their offerings with customer requirements and to support business decision-making."

Webshad was started in 1999 as a black empowerment venture. It has developed core skills in e-commerce, and markets solutions for database performance monitoring and tuning and to enable business with complete e-commerce solutions.

"Webshad is a young company," says Larren Mashoko, Webshad business development manager. "Strategic alliances are important in developing an end-to-end e-business offering and developing skills in associated technologies. Our partner strategy gives our customers access to best-of-breed products such as Sagent's data warehousing offerings."

The two companies have already embarked on planning for joint projects. Webshad staff will work with the Sagent team, getting experience and training in the Sagent technology and methodology while providing skills in e-enablement. Sagent will provide additional expertise in the extraction of Web-based data and downloading it for analysis.

"Webshad is now extending its marketing focus to the private sector, having previously concentrated on government," says Mashoko. "We will assist Sagent in cross-selling the Sagent Solution to government organisations. There is real value for both parties in this alliance, and the customer will benefit with proven solutions and expertise."