JJ Milner was an IT geek and never had to make a conscious effort to learn about the industry he is in today. It was a hobby that came naturally. He knew this hobby would turn into a business when he was just 17 years old. Today, 25 years since its inception, Global Micro Solutions is making a mark in cloud servicing and business in the IT industry.
In 1990, Milner and a friend founded Global Micro Solutions with $400 each, selling computers out of his parents’ garage.
Today, Global Micro Solutions is making money many businesses can only dream of. Working with a broad spectrum of companies in South Africa, Milner provides IT solutions to small and medium sized organizations as well as enterprises and multi-nationals.
But it hasn’t been smooth sailing for this entrepreneur.
Micro Global Solutions offers the latest advances in the information, communications and technology sector but when the United States-based WorldCom (now known as MCI) decided to pull out of a $400,000 deal with Micro Global Solutions, Milner had to dig deep to save his business.
“Our biggest challenge is people not keeping their word, in one form or another. Whether in breaking a contract or breaking the spirit of the contract; when not delivering when they say they’re going to deliver; renegotiating something that was agreed when they understood that was not the basis when they went into the deal,” says Milner.
Global Micro Solutions was doing well and he wanted the business to grow out of its comfort zone and that involved putting down his hard-earned money, as well as his time and effort.
Around 1995, Global Micro Solutions had a deal with UUNET, a subsidiary of WorldCom. UUNET partnered with Global Micro Solutions to offer the first multi-tenant hosted exchange platform in Africa. It was made possible through a close relationship with Microsoft.
“We went to them and spent six to eight months planning what we were going to do, like build some new services. We built the first multi-tenant host exchange solution in the world with Microsoft on Exchange 2000 Beta,” says Milner.
UUNET was based in Johannesburg and at the time the US-based telecommunications firm, WorldCom, was the second largest distance phone company and had partnered with Global Micro Solutions on this project.
Milner and his team spent over eight months building the data center at UUNET’s offices and connecting all the wires to make this a success, spending around $400,000 on the project.
It was around this time that a WorldCom representative from the US came to South Africa. Everything was set, all the connections made and Milner was just waiting for the green light to unveil the project.
“We kept asking them when we are going to launch and the guy turned around and said we’re not sure if the service is going to work,” remembers Milner.
After months of hard work, this was a sickening blow.
“Yes, with all the equipment in their data center,” he says.
WorldCom was going to sell UUNET, which meant that the management team would change affecting relationships already built between Milner and the companies. At the time, Milner didn’t know what was going on with WorldCom in the US.
“And literally after I was funding this myself and every month we were there, there was R300,000 finance fees going out for the business. I had to start pushing buttons quite hard to find out what was going on,” says Milner.
Global Micro Solutions were given a million reasons why WorldCom was pulling out of the deal and none made sense to Milner as there was a signed agreement.
“It was a hard thing to deal with, because normally when someone is having a dispute with you they defend their position. There are three sides to every story right? When someone says to you ‘I just changed my mind’, how do you argue with that?” asks Milner.
He could have sued WorldCom, but he didn’t.
“You’ve got to fight the battles you can win,” he says.
Even with a Law degree, Milner felt helpless.
He was worried about the salaries for the 18 people who relied on him to survive. The equipment cost around a few hundred thousand rand every month, but there was no revenue coming in.
“You have a multi-million-rand hole and you’re 24 or 25 years old and the largest telecoms company in the world is telling you to whistle and you don’t have a customer yet and you’ve moved on from what was a good customer service because it was time to spread your wings and do the next thing,” says Milner.
“It’s not a bad decision to be in, but it makes you stronger.”
Milner went on and reached out to everyone he knew including Microsoft. They couldn’t help him but they set up a meeting with South Africa’s biggest landline provider, Telkom.
“I went to Telkom with Microsoft. We gave them an incredibly soft deal. We had to. They had no risk, we put everything down and to Telkom’s credit they took the opportunity. They were incredibly cushioned. I shouldn’t sound surprised by it, we priced it right,” he says.
Telkom launched the hosted exchange project within three months, also becoming Global Micro Solutions first major reseller of its services. The deal got Milner’s company out of its debt woes. Today, Telkom remains a client.
Since then, Milner has been taking risk and expanding his business. The company has evolved into one of the most experienced IT providers of diverse, comprehensive and business-related managed technology services in South Africa. Global Micro Solutions also boasts a number of South African firsts, including: first deployments of hosted Exchange and federated hosted Exchange, hosted Citrix, n-Tier provisioning, Hosted Hyper-V, and Hosted OCS.
He says this has all happened because he took risks. Milner compares his personality as a bussinessperson to Discovery Holdings’ Adrian Gore. He says that becoming an entrepreneur is like jumping out of a plane with silkworms instead of a parachute and hoping that they’re overachievers.
“I can’t think of a better definition than that because I do that a lot,” he says.
“I’ll often go into something and just trust the team we’ve got and trust that we will figure out the answers. It’s served us well. I hope I’ve got overachievers with me.”
Cloud computing is quickly becoming an indispensable part of the IT industry. Milner, along with his team, offers insights into cloud technologies, email management, server architecture, and enterprise communication strategies which has made Global Micro Solutions a leader in its industry.
Milner is one of the most respected voices in the industry today and his company, Global Micro Solutions, is spearheading many of South Africa’s top technology projects. And he will not allow another deal to set him back.