Strategic landscape, M&A, CEOs, expansions, SaaS sector implications
The past week saw a number of developments in strategic circles, another change in the CEO spot for a prominent provider, activity in a number of US data centre markets and we take a closer look at what the recent results from the SaaS sector say about directional trends in infrastructure services.
The public markets have seen a number of departures on the data centre side. But the process may not yet be complete as listed China-focused operators VNET and Chindata Group evaluate proposals for take-private acquisitions. Elsewhere in the public markets, United Internet in Germany is moving forward with spinning out the IONOS cloud and hosting business as a standalone public company and Deutsche Telekom is said to be halting the process of spinning out the T-Systems infrastructure services arm. There were some transactions of note as well. Evocative closed its acquisition of various INAP’s data centre assets, in the SMB space, Newfold Digital acquired MarkMonitor and Quad-C Management took a majority stake in MSP Synoptek.
We have seen new CEOs at CyrusOne and Rackspace in recent weeks. The latest operator to get a new CEO is Cologix. Laura Ortman steps into the role, replacing the outgoing Bill Fathers.
There was more data centre development activity in a number of key US markets. DataBank opened its sixth data centre in Salt Lake City, Utah, CoreSite acquired another facility in the Miami market and Digital Realty is planning a new downtown data centre in Chicago.
Finally, we took a look back at the results coming from the SaaS sector and assess its impact on the wide infrastructure services ecosystem. There are signs of belt tightening and cost optimization coming from customers as the uncertainty of the current environment makes its presence felt. But while that has lead to some slowing in infrastructure consumption, the fact is the overall trajectory remains steady and stable.
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