Dimension Data, the South African services giant, has bought a US-based enterprise cloud hosting and storage company called OpSource.

The company is creating a central Cloud Solutions Business Unit to house OpSource. It will report directly to chief executive Brett Dawson.

OpSource has 150 staff. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California with other offices in the UK, Ireland and India. OpSource has an existing relationship with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation which is a minority shareholder in the firm.

NTT bought DiData for $2bn last year. The Japanese telco said at the time that the move to cloud computing was a primary reason for the purchase.

DiData began life in 1983 in South Africa. It now has offices in 49 countries and turns over just short of $5bn.

OpSource was owned by private investors including Artiman Ventures, Fuse Capital, Intel Capital and Key Venture Partners.

Financial terms of the deal were not released. ®