The largest independent operator of data centres with fast internet connections would not raise prices after completing the acquisition of its nearest US competitor on Friday, Steve Smith, Equinix chief executive, told the Financial Times.

Interxion Holding, a European provider of colocation data centre services, has announced that it has submitted a draft registration statement on Form F-1 on a confidential basis to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a possible initial public offering of ordinary shares.

The offering is expected to be completed in the second half of 2010, pending regulatory approval and as capital markets conditions permit. The number of shares proposed to be offered and sold and the amount proposed to be raised in the offering have not yet been determined.

Integral has acquired Axon to create the largest privately owned local ICT services company. Axon was sold for an undisclosed sum in a share purchase. The combined company will have revenues of NZ$150 million and 360 staff.

IT services provider Rackspace Hosting has said y its profit for the first quarter rose sharply from last year, driven mainly by a 23.2% increase in revenue. Quarterly earnings matched Street view, while revenues surpassed estimates. First-quarter net income was US$9.81 million, 48.9% higher than $6.59 million in the same quarter last year.

The San Antonio, Texas-based company's net revenue for the quarter was $US178.81 million, higher than US$145.08 million in the prior-year quarter.

Source: Stock Market Review

Cincinnati Bell has little choice but to innovate if it wants to grow. That's because its core markets are either saturated or declining. Fibre optics and commercial data centres will be focus areas of the company in coming years, CEO Jack Cassidy said at Cincinnati Bell’s annual shareholders meeting. The 500,000 sq ft of data centre space that Cincinnati Bell has in Greater Cincinnati account for about 10% of its profits, with growth of about 27% in 2009.

Cary data management company Consonus Technologies will become a subsidiary of Midas Medici Holdings, a publicly traded company in New York that's investing in smart grid developments. Consonus, with more than 100 employees in Cary, will continue operating independently under its own name without changes or layoffs, company officials said. Consonus provides data storage and support.

Consonus has about 200 employees and operates three data centres in Salt Lake City.

Source: News Observer

South Sioux City Council's Finance Committee voted 4-0 Wednesday to set an electrical rate of 4.7 cents per kilowatt to be paid by future occupants of the data park the city is developing. City Administrator Lance Hedquist said that although Nebraska Public Power District is building two new substations in the city, a company in the data Center would have to build its own substation. The city, which buys electricity for its customers from Nebraska Public Power District, would add the energy-hungry data centre to its customer list at the agreed-upon rate.

AboveNet, a provider of high-bandwidth connectivity solutions, announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

Revenue for the first quarter of 2010 was US$97.2 million, a 13.8% increase from US$85.4 million for the first quarter of 2009. Excluding contract termination revenue from each period, revenue would have been US$96.2 million and US$83.5 million, respectively, an increase of US$12.7 million, or 15.2%.

Source: Market Watch

Irish IT services company PFH has bought the Irish business of Siemens Enterprise Communications in what it called a 'multi-million euro deal'. PFH currently employs 150 people in Dublin, Cork and Galway, but this deal will bring the total to 200.

Siemens Enterprise Communications provides communications services for businesses, including voice, network infrastructure and security technology. It is jointly owned by German engineering giant Siemens and the Gores Group.

Source: RTE

DataChambers, a North Carolina-based technology firm, has announced it has secured financing from NewBridge Bank to support construction of a new data centre on its 80-acre campus in Winston-Salem. Work is well under way on the 20,000 sq ft US$9 million project, which was announced last spring. When completed, it will more than double the company’s capacity to house data networks for its clients, including more than 110 firms in 28 states.

Equinix, the data-centre operator, expects to sign a US$200 million loan to expand in Asia, after commitments from five more banks, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The five-year term facility, which pays an all-in fee of 409 basis points more than the London interbank offered rate, was increased from US$170 million, the two people said, asking not to be identified as details are private. No one could be reached for comment at Equinix’s main office.

Source: Business Week

Internap Network Services, a global provider of end-to-end Internet business products and services, has reported first quarter 2010 financial results. Continued improvements in segment profit and adjusted EBITDA, reflect sustained focus on profitable revenue opportunities and progress made strengthening operations.

Revenue of US$63.4 million compared with US$63.9 million in the first quarter of 2009; Segment profit of US$29.3 million; segment margin of 46.2 %, up 200 basis points year-over-year.

Source: Market Watch

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced its updated guidance for the second quarter and the full year of 2010 to reflect the anticipated results following its acquisition of Switch & Data, announced recently. All guidance reflects a closing date of April 30, 2010 for the Switch and Data acquisition and therefore contributes to Equinix's guidance from May 1, 2010 onwards.

C4L, a UK colocation provider, has announced an extended £2 million hosting contract with TelecityGroup. The deal ensures the continuation of C4L’s long-term partnership with the Group, and enables the company to expand its services at one of the UK’s key data centre locations.

Criteo, a personalized advertising start-up with a unique strategy for recapturing lost customers, announced on Thursday that it has secured a US$7 million third round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners.

Criteo says it will use the new funding to fuel growth in the US, to backup the current infrastructure, and to construct more data centres. The company, which currently oversees two large data centres domestically, employs 140 people around the world.

Source: Vator

Emirates NBD, the biggest banking group in the Middle East by assets, has won the “data centre project of the year” recognition of the NetworkWorld Middle East Awards 2010 for its Al Barsha data centre project.

The awards event, that recognised innovative IT initiatives, for their achievement in creating new business value through IT-enabled innovation, was held at the Mina A’ Salam hotel in Dubai.

Source: Trade Arabia

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ShareFile, a leader in virtual data room and FTP site alternatives for business, recently opened a fourth data centre located in Asia. This data centre is just the latest in a long line of upgrades made by ShareFile in the recent months to enhance their already outstanding level of service reliability and speed.

The Kerala IT has floated a global Request For Proposals from reputed master planners of IT parks for preparing a master plan for Kochi Infopark’s phase-II development, with a total built-up space of about 8 million sq ft. In its pursuit of becoming a leading IT/ITES destination in the country, the Kerala IT had announced the second phase of expansion of the Infopark last year on 160 acres of land in Kunnathunadu and Puthencruz villages.

Datacom scooped the top prize at the New Zealand hi-tech awards in Auckland on Friday night, with the judges saying it was in a class of its own. The IT company now has over 3000 employees and was described by the judges as a revenue and profit machine.

Amazon.com is promising unspecified changes to its data centre power architecture to reduce the number of disruptions for its cloud computing customers.

Verizon Business is enhancing its European network infrastructure to help meet data-growth demands of its enterprise customers and prepare for the activation of the Europe India Gateway submarine cable network system later this year.

BlueBridge Networks, a provider of business continuity services, has announced that it has acquired the former Nationwide Insurance data centre located in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. This data centre acquisition is instrumental to the company's growth strategy of continuing to make significant investments in infrastructure and services offerings aimed at enhancing their data centre and business continuity solutions.

A telecommunications company has opened a new data centre in the Saratoga Technology b Energy Park in Malta, New York. The company, tw telecom, is occupying 13,000 sq ft of space the STEP park, which is owned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

The colocation facility provides back-up communication services to clients. The company has 29 people at the site, including workers moved from an office on Airline Drive in Colonie, said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman from NYSERDA.

Source: The Business Review

Telecommunications provider BT has announced it will be expanding its data centre, BT Radianz Proximity Solution hosting services, in Singapore. The data centre is managed and operated by StarHub, BT's telecom partner for access services in Singapore. The new facility doubles both its floor space and available power.

Aruba Networks has reported that it is acquiring Azalea Networks in a move that will beef up Aruba's outdoor mesh offerings as well as provide Aruba with a new operations centre in Beijing. Aruba said the acquisition terms call for a total consideration of US$27 million in stock and up to US$13.5 million in cash over two years.

Hewlett-Packard has announced new servers and promised to help businesses free up the cash to buy them, by “self-funding” IT projects that eliminate old technology - a process the company calls “breaking the innovation gridlock”. HP’s announcement focused on finance, because no matter how fast servers are, they don’t sell themselves.

PEER 1 Hosting has announced that the company's new, US$40 million data centre located in Toronto, Ontario is officially up and running. The 40,000 sq ft flagship data centre is also the first PEER 1 Hosting data centre to offer all three hosting solutions - colocation, managed hosting and dedicated hosting - under one roof.

Assam is gearing up to make big leap in IT industry and attract country’s top BPO firms and call centres to the state by improving IT infrastructure and strengthening Internet connectivity. As a first move the government is setting up a State Data Centre in Guwahati which would serve as a centre of IT and communication networks in the state.

The construction of the data centre being set up inside the state secretariat would cost Rs 12.13 crore, while another Rs 49.4 crore would be pumped in for the IT infrastructure of the centre.

Source: IGovernment

Rackspace has released the findings of its latest commissioned research which indicates that UK businesses may be missing opportunities around new approaches to technology and continuing to over-invest in legacy IT. The research, surveying over 400 IT decision makers, including 218 from the UK, revealed that 93% of the UK companies surveyed do not believe that they have a cutting-edge approach to adopting new technology.

Construction is under way on a new facility that will incorporate a data centre and service hub for IBM New Zealand’s centre is being built to support its clients’ applications and operations. The building marks the start of an investment of more than NZ$80 million in the data centre over the next decade. It will be located at Highbrook Business Park, East Tamaki, and IBM is working with Highbrook Development Ltd through a long-term leasing and operating commitment.

DuPont Fabros Technology has said it launched a sale of 11 million shares to raise money for data centres in California and Virginia. The company said it expected to give underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to another 1.65 million shares to cover overallotments.

The company said it intended to used the proceeds plus borrowing from its revolving credit facility and cash to finish the first phase of a data centre in Santa Clara, California, and another in Ashburn, Virginia.

Source: Business Week

Glodyne Technoserve, a technology infrastructure management services company has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DecisionOne, a US based technology IMS company for a total consideration of US$104 million.

Cincinnati Bell and ABRY Partners have entered into a definitive agreement for Cincinnati Bell to acquire data centre operator CyrusOne in a cash transaction valued at approximately US$525 million. CyrusOne is a premier provider of colocation and data centre services to Fortune 500 companies, and the largest privately held data centre operator based in the state of Texas. CyrusOne will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell, retaining its brand and executive management team.

Anticipating rapid growth in public and private clouds, Microsoft has dedicated 30,000 engineers to Azure, Bing, and online versions of Office and Live. Microsoft is plunging into cloud services to give its customers a range of choices in public and private cloud computing, said Doug Hauger, general manager of Windows Azure.

With a net cash position of US$186 million for the year to February, Datatec is considering expanding its emerging market presence through acquisitions in Latin America and Asia Pacific. However, no concrete plans were announced at the company's results presentation yesterday. It already owns businesses in three of the four emerging market regions.

Interxion, a European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data centre services, has announced an agreement with Trunk Networks, a hosted-solutions provider, to deliver equipment housing and connectivity services in Interxion’s London City data centre.

Trunk Networks is one of the newest players in the data centre, hosting and connectivity market for the SMB sector. It provides all aspects of colocation, hosting and connectivity, from its hosted-desktop, 'cloud computing', and Citrix products through to VoIP telephony and hosted-email solutions.

CoreSite Realty, a real-estate investment trust focused on data centres, planned to raise up to US$230 million in an initial public offering of common stock, according to a filing with the regulator. Pricing terms of the offering were not disclosed. The company intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COR".

An industrial area whose redevelopment has been seen as a remedy for slumping revenues would become a sprawling business park under a plan unveiled by local officials. The blueprint for the 120 acres – once set aside for luxury homes planned by EnCap — envisions warehouses, office space and light industry along the eastern edge of town. Other possible uses for the site, which includes Porete Avenue and areas east of Schuyler Avenue, include a data centre and a film studio.

Wipro Infotech, the IT arm of Wipro, has announced it has won three projects from the governments of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Gujarat for setting up data centres.

Internet Initiative Japan, Japan's Internet access and comprehensive network solutions providers, has announced its decision to commercialise the modular eco-data centre based on the results of the proof of concept testing conducted this past February, with construction beginning in June 2010.

Data centre cooling and power requirements will increase dramatically over the next two years following a sharp rise in high density infrastructure deployments, according to Gartner. The analyst firm said in its Data Center Power, Cooling and Space report that the increased load will require more space, and that companies need to act now to avoid problems in the future.

Data centres are growing as an emerging asset class, with dynamic characteristics that are attracting investor recognition. While investing in data centres by institutions might not readily be considered as an asset class, the latest currents at play in the sector appear to be creating a confluence of factors that points to greater interest in the space. Data centres are really at the exotic end of investing in real estate but with a technical twist.

Professionals from small and medium-sized businesses in London have the opportunity to discover how cutting edge hosted IT and Unified Communications technology can help their business stay competitive and be more profitable in 2010 at Outsourcery's free Technology for Business breakfast seminar on Thursday, 27th May at 8am at Microsoft's London office: Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL

Most companies and even government agencies in Qatar have joined the global trends of gearing towards a platform of virtualisation of their IT infrastructure to make it more dynamic and cost efficient. “Across the world, there’s a high demand for virtualisation in the last two to three years that even Qatar has now followed the trend,” Zane Adam, General Manager of Microsoft’s Virtualisation and System Centre told The Peninsula yesterday.

Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) is receiving US$14.3 million of one billion dollars of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to construct, repair and renovate scientific research laboratories and related facilities across the country.

Cox Business and Phoenix NAP, a new, next generation data centre and network access point, have announced that they have come together to deepen security, redundancy and data centre accessibility for small and medium-sized businesses across the state.

"Cox Business is significantly expanding our fibre infrastructure in Arizona. Our alliance with the Phoenix NAP enterprise will provide a new layer of connectivity and security options for growing businesses in our competitive market," said Hyman Sukiennik, vice president of Cox Business.

Source: PR Newswire

KVH, a provider of IT and communication services in Japan, has announced that KVH Tokyo Data Center 2 (TDC2), its second commercially available data centre in the Tokyo area will be completed and operational by February 2011. Located just outside of Tokyo in Inzai City, Chiba Prefecture, KVH TDC2 will effectively address the increasing need for turn-key, high-specification data centre space for corporations demanding high power and cooling capacity.

Juniper is expected to unveil the first products embodying its new 'flat' for data centre networking, announced in February 2009 as the Stratus Project, and has hinted at very significant efficiency gains for data centre networks.

Colocation provider, CoreLink Data Centers, is now providing Continuity Focus with innovative colocation solutions. CoreLink’s services include high performing network and IP offerings, performance and availability, transparency, 100% uptime service level agreement and flexible contrac tterms.

Phoenix NAP, a next-generation data centre and network access point, has announced that tw telecom, a provider of managed voice, Internet and data networking solutions for businesses across the US, has established connectivity within the Phoenix NAP facility, and is offering its Business Ethernet services directly to clients of the data centre for their enterprise networking needs.

The channel battle for dominance of the cloud is heating up as a number of top integrators revealed it will be a key focus of their go-to-market strategy this year. Logicalis opens doors on its purpose-built £7.5 million data centre this month as its full cloud proposition hits the market.

IBM has announced it plans to build a technology service centre in Columbia, Mo., that could employ 800 people by 2012, one of the biggest economic development wins in Missouri so far this year. Gov. Jay Nixon and executives from the tech giant said construction on the facility - in a now-vacant factory in southeast Columbia - could start soon.

Global telecoms giant BT is saving on average £57 million a year by enabling 10% of its 100,000-strong workforce to work flexibly or remotely, its chief sustainability officer Chris Tuppen told delegates at a Business & Leadership briefing on the Green Economy. He was recently named 'one of the 50 people who could save the planet from climatic disaster' by a special Guardian newspaper panel.

The Forestry Commission, Britain’s largest land manager, has signed a five-year, £1 million contract with Fujitsu to manage its IT estate. Fujitsu will be responsible for maintaining the Commission's ICT including storage, servers, and its data centre in Edinburgh. Fujitsu will also be charged with maintaining IT equipment for 2,700 users across 100 distributed offices and depots, including handheld devices, rugged laptops, desktops, printers and plotters.

International law firm Mayer Brown has advised new client Colt Telecommunications on the £49 million acquisition of one of the largest single site data centres in the UK. Colt, a provider of business communications and IT managed services across 13 countries, and one of the Fidelity group of companies, purchased the data centre via the acquisition of shares in a property holding vehicle owned by a consortium of private investors.

Active Power, manufacturer of critical backup power systems and continuous power solutions, received an order for more than US$8 million for containerised infrastructure solutions from one of its strategic IT partners. The order represents the largest single order in Active Power’s history.

Last year, people were still arguing over definitions of cloud computing, but this year the technology has gained momentum. From the hardware top cats through to the security bigwigs, the vast majority of the tech community is getting on board and bringing out their own products to tackle any obstacles the new model might face.

Yet one fight still rages on: public or private?

Source: IT Pro

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A second multimillion-pound data farm scheme in rural Dumfries and Galloway has been recommended for approval. Internet Villages International (IVI) wants planning consent for its plans at Johnston ebank Farm near Ecclefechan. Another data centre at Peelhouses on the outskirts of Lockerbie was approved by councillors late last year.

The parent of the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls discount store chains is considering New Albany for a corporate technology centre that could create 28 jobs. Municipality spokesman Scott McAfee said that New Albany Village Council will consider an incentives package for Framingham, Mass.-based TJX Companies that includes a 15-year, 65% property tax abatement.

TJX, which also runs the A.J. Wright and HomeGoods chains, is looking to spend up to US$84 million to develop a 60,000-square-foot tech centre in the village’s research and information district.

BlueSquare Data is looking for an existing data centre facility that can be refitted to bring it in line with the company’s existing tier 3 and 4 sites. The search will focus on locations in the south-east of England, outside of the M25, in order to take advantage of the lower cost of land outside of the capital. This will also allow BlueSquare Data to avoid the risks to customers created by the low power availability in London, and to ensure business continuity in the face of potential terror attacks in the capital.

The man in charge of online auction giant eBay’s data centres argues that the electricity used by IT equipment should be paid for from the IT department’s budget. That way, Dean Nelson said at a US conference this week, the impact that IT decisions have on energy efficiency will be better understood. It will also become possible to justify IT projects on the basis of energy savings, as well as functional improvements, he said.

French-headquartered international business telecommunication services provider and ICT integrator NextiraOne reported revenues down 4 percent to €325 million in 2009, mainly due to a 12% fall in voice equipment sales, which account for nearly 50%t of its total turnover.

Virtualisation software, such as Citrix XenApp, can bring significant financial benefits to companies that utilise the technology, it has been suggested. The US House of Representatives has reduced its electricity bill by around US$2,000 a day because of virtualisation and server consolidation, PC World reports.

Jack Nichols, director for enterprise operations at the institute’s Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, explained that the option was chosen as part of an initiative by this branch of Congress to cut its power usage by 50%.

Guilford County got the best of both worlds Thursday. American Express has decided to locate a US$400 million data services centre in the eastern part of the county and agreed to do so without requesting any local financial incentives. “I would say congratulations to all of us. This is a big deal. A big deal,” said Pat Danahy, president and CEO of the Greensboro Partnership. The company already has a large call center at 7701 Airport Center Drive. That operation opened in 1985 and employs about 2,000 people.

Datacom will spend A$2 million on a 70-rack expansion of the Metro iX data centre in Perth after acquiring the facility from Perth iX for an amount "in excess of A$10 million".

Datacom's Western Australian managing director Basil Lenzo told iTnews that the company had acquired both the Metro iX asset - currently about 200 racks in size - and its client base of mostly colocation customers. The Perth iX holding company would retain control of its other data centre asset.

Source: IT News

Data centre operator FiberMedia has opened a facility in Secaucus, the latest computer centre built in North Jersey as Wall Street becomes more high tech. Michael Roark, FiberMedia's president and chief executive officer, said the NYSE Euronext's data centre in Mahwah made the decision to expand in Secaucus easier.

The company's 10-year lease for 32,610 sq ft took effect in March, said Daniel Ackerman, senior director of leasing at Lincoln Equities Group in Rutherford. The 84,000 sq Ft facility is owned by Willett Cos. of Rye, N.Y.

Digiweb, the independent Irish telecoms firm, is eyeing up acquisitions in Britain that could double the size of its business to €100 million. Colm Piercy, founder and chief executive of Digiweb, said that the firm would continue an acquisition spree that has already involved the buyouts of Smart Telecom, Internet Ireland and TalkTalk’s business in Ireland and Belgium. Those deals have boosted the firm’s annual revenues to more than €50 million, with operating profits of over €10 million. Digiweb has 106,000 customers for its services.

Digital Realty Trust, the largest wholesale data centre provider, has unveiled a powerful new tool that will enable customers to increase data centre energy efficiency and reduce power costs. PowerVU is the industry's first packaged solution for centralised monitoring and management of data centre power consumption, energy efficiency and load analysis.

Back in 2007, the powers-that-be at eBay had an epiphany: The way it was building data centres was unsustainable, especially from a power and cooling standpoint. “At some point, the cost of running the sites would negatively affect our business,” said Dean Nelson, senior director of Global Data Centre Services for eBay, during a presentation at the recent Symposium 2010, held by the Uptime Institute in New York.

US wholesale carrier Allied Fiber has finalised agreements with financial partners and right-of-way owners to build a new nationwide, network-neutral, high-count dark fibre cable system integrated with colocation facilities and wireless tower sites.

The UK’s largest property services company, Countrywide’s five business divisions can guide you through the property-buying journey, from finding a property to offering financial, surveying and conveyancing services en route to completion. There’s also a lettings division that links landlords with prospective tenants via some of the 1200 agency offices. This rapid growth, and the fact that the five divisions operated as independent silos, meant a reorganisation was required to reduce costs, increase efficiency and drive Countrywide forward into its third decade.

The power supplier Chloride laid down the gauntlet to the US conglomerate trying to buy it, as it posted higher than expected profits today. Analysts said Emerson would now have to make a second offer, "substantially above" 300p, to deliver a knock-out blow. The US company's initial approach of 275p was rejected by Chloride last month. Tim Cobbold, chief executive of Chloride, also claimed that the company's smaller size meant it was better placed to benefit from the global economic recovery than Emerson.

Lightower Fiber Networks, a Boxborough fibre network and bandwidth service provider, said it is acquiring Veroxity Technology Partners, a Westford company that provides fibre based data and Internet connectivity solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the third quarter, Lightower said.

A group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists who bet on companies like Skype and Facebook are taking a look at another long-shot proposition - hat Russia can diversify its economy away from oil. The Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, has elevated diversification to a centrepiece of his economic policy and is building a sprawling technology park outside Moscow referred to as Russia’s Silicon Valley.

A number of public sector organisations are now looking at how they can make the spending cuts demanded by the government. The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have identified potential savings in IT, while HM Revenue and Customs and the National Policing Improvement Agency are also likely to make considerable cuts in the area.

NetApp reported a strong fourth quarter courtesy of data centre build outs fuelled by server virtualization and cloud computing. The storage company reported fourth quarter earnings of US$145 million on revenue of US$1.17 billion, up from US$880 million a year ago.

Tom Georgens, CEO of NetApp, said “The server virtualization and cloud computing trends are driving significant business for us, as our competitive advantages in those areas lead more customers to choose NetApp storage efficiency solutions for larger and larger data centre projects”..

INetU Managed Hosting has announced the purchase of facilities in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania to support increasing customer demand and new business growth.

INetU purchased a 46,000 sq ft facility which will be used to expand data centre capacity and, customer support operations. The facility will also house the newly established product development centre: INetU Labs. Later this year, the new facility will receive an Energy Star compliant roof that will reduce energy consumption by 20% to 30%.

Source: PR Newswire