Going beyond the ordinary

This article was featured on the EGR B2B Winners Report 2019. You can view the printed article here.

As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and this fits perfectly with the realities of online gaming operators. The constant focus on launching innovations to end-users or deploying solutions and platforms to B2B clients requires both breadth and depth in terms of skillset and resources but also the ability to ensure that everything performs to a tee, all the time.

This is where service providers such as BMIT Technologies play a critical role. Winners of the 2019 IT Service Provider EGR award, the recently publicly listed company [MSE: BMIT], has further extended its services portfolio as it continues to serve its wide base of online gaming customers, ranging from innovative start-ups and small operators, to mid-size B2B and B2C operators to some of the largest gaming operators worldwide.

Originally known as a datacentre provider, BMIT Technologies has actually continued to invest in this area, with the announcements of the opening of yet another datacentre in Malta – a €10+ million investment in a purposely-built facility, designed to be Tier 3 certified once inaugurated in 2020. This investment complements the company’s other two datacentres in Malta, and its points of presence in Italy and Germany. As with all its facilities, the new datacentre will also be interlinked to BMIT’s high speed international private network, which provides one-of-a-kind speeds and security features for all BMIT Technologies customers. 

Customers’ demands for cloud solutions and hybrid cloud set-ups is on a continuous rise, and in this context BMIT Technologies has adopted a multi-pronged approach to ensure that customer requirements are satisfied. Over these last years the company has deployed a number of public cloud services, related to computing, storage, productivity and hosting, as well as a number of managed private and hybrid cloud services. These allow customers to tap into BMIT’s pool of technical experts and platforms, and define the optimal infrastructure requirements, which generally ensure a pay-as-you-go, scalable solution, which grows as business grows. Topping these offerings are a range of managed IT services, which allow customers to fully or partially delegate the management of their infrastructure to BMIT Technologies, and therefore further optimise their investments and resources.

In the context of increasing hybrid cloud requirements, as well as the deployment of services over global cloud platforms, BMIT has also announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft, which would allow it to deploy a range of managed services over Microsoft’s Azure platform globally. Additionally, the company will also be enabling hybrid cloud capabilities on Azure through Azure Stack, starting from Q4 2019, as it addresses regulatory and compliance requirements of customers wishing to deploy services on the cloud.

Security requirements and compliance concerns have always been top-of-mind topics for CEOs, CTOs and CSOs across organisations, and as infrastructures becomes increasingly complex, across platforms and sometimes across jurisdictions, security and compliance matters can become nightmare subjects unless handled appropriately. BMIT Technologies’ comprehensive security portfolio covers services and solutions such as managed firewalls, backups and disaster recovery solutions, unified threat management, remote access solutions and more recently, productivity-related security options.

Gone are the days when productivity products are seen as distinct from the rest of the company’s core IT systems. With employees working from different locations and requiring continuous access to company resources, CTOs are increasingly looking at solutions which allow for flexibility and ease of access without compromising the security of the organisational data. Microsoft Office 365 is most likely the most obvious choice for these requirements, as it provides a pay-per-use truly complete suite of solutions, with different plans: from the popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint to increasingly useful tools such as Teams, combined with SharePoint, which allows for easy collaboration, document share and communication all in one software.

All services are constantly being updated with new features – with the beautiful addition for technical teams that they need not worry about deploying and managing updates themselves. BMIT Technologies have handled some of Malta’s largest Office 365 implementations, with responsibility to deploy, migrate and power-up thousands of users across different Office 365 plans. Microsoft’s step-up from Office 365 is Microsoft 365, which bundles Office 365, Windows 10 and mobility security features together, and all for a pay-per-use monthly fee.  BMIT have added Microsoft 365 to their portfolio, complete with a range of managed deployment options, to facilitate adoption.

The enabler for this full suite of IT services is a continuous investment in training and certifications.  BMIT Technologies’ prides Microsoft Gold Partner and HPE Gold Partner status for a number of competencies, as well as other industry-leading certifications from a number of other global players. This reflects itself in the capability of the company to understand requirements, propose solutions and eventually deploy and manage systems to the customer’s full satisfaction.

Following BMIT Technologies’ successful IPO earlier this year, and the eventual listing on the Malta Stock Exchange, the company is now aiming at extending further its full suite offering, as well embark on a growth journey, which will see it explore new technologies and new markets.