Web hosting target of AT&T/IBM Global Services pact
|
|||
 | |||
|
IBM Global Services inked two deals with AT&T last week, one as a new customer and another as a partner.
IBM is buying $450 million worth of collocation services from AT&T in nine of the telecommunication giant's data centers. IBM is using the data center real estate to expand its network of 13 Web-hosting facilities, which it calls e-Business Hosting Centers, around the country.
IBM Global Services offers managed Web-hosting services to large business users. By year-end, IBM will deploy servers in AT&T's New York, Chicago and Phoenix facilities. By the end of the third quarter 2001, IBM will have e-Business Hosting Centers operational in six more AT&T data centers.
"It makes more sense for IBM Global Services to buy collocation space from carriers such as AT&T, since it no longer owns its own network," says Melanie Posey, analyst at Framingham, Mass., consulting firm IDC. Last year IBM sold its network to AT&T because it wanted to concentrate on offering managed services for customers instead of managing a carrier-class network.
AT&T is also supporting dedicated Internet access to other ISP networks for IBM Web-hosting customers that may use a service provider other than AT&T to access the Internet, says Sandy Brown, vice president and general manager of hosting services at AT&T.
In addition, the two companies are developing services that each will jointly market and sell. The first service based on the partnership is called Ecosystem for Media. AT&T is deploying IBM Netfinity 4000R Web servers equipped with the Linux operation system and RealServer Plus streaming software.
The service will let small and midsize companies more easily add streaming media support to their Web sites, Brown says.
"This is the first of many services that we'll be rolling out," says Jim Gant, vice president of global e-business hosting services at IBM Global Services.
AT&T: www.att.com
IBM Global Services: www.ibm.com/services/
RELATED LINKS
