Edge, SMB, domains, telco, JV
The diversity within the sector was on display for another week.
Edge was again front and centre. Edge data centre provider Vapor IO went live in Chicagowith edge compute provider Packet deploying its platform. Edge is undoubtedly in its infancy and new providers are starting to emerge. We came across another one:EdgeUno. EdgeUno is looking at the market in Latin America and has eyed Colombia as its first landing point.
The SMB sector continues to chug along. Growth rates have come down in certain pockets but providers around the world still show steady trajectories. Switzerland’s Hostpoint is doing well and Exabytes in Malaysia has had success and recently brought in a private equity investor. Exabytes has been involved in M&A in the SEA region and domain registrar Tucows is consolidating in the wholesale domain sphere.
Hyperscale and edge are driving the next frontier and legacy services continue to be impacted. We recently came across an interesting data point on the telco side that speaks to this dynamic. Retail colocation continues to be one of the sectors that is seeing increasing headwinds.
The competition for hyperscale, and the skyrocketing capital requirements, is pushing providers to look at different sources of revenue. QTS, for example, recently went the joint venture path for its wholesale data centre facility in NoVA.
Elsewhere, we saw interesting developments in managed third party cloud and some interesting hires.
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