M&A, capabilities, footprint expansions, new providers, more data points
The sector is starting to pick up after the holiday lull and the past week was again highlighted by a high volume of M&A activity.
In terms of high-profile transactions, the Iron Mountain acquisition of the US assets of IO Data Centers was closed in the past week. Iron Mountain also confirmed an expansion from data centre operator Cyxtera. Cyxtera was also involved in M&A and added to its security portfolio with the purchase of a Miami-based company called Immunity. New capabilities were a theme in other deals as ColoHouse acquired Netrouting and brought in managed hosting and access services, while Involta purchased an IT consultancy in Dallas called Kadium. Another data centre deal saw Evocative acquire a NoVA data centre and eStruxture in Montreal recently acquired an old newspaper printing facility it will convert into a data centre.
We also continued working through the recent earnings season, with a closer look at results from GDS, QTS and Interoute. QTS is seeing momentum on the wholesale side and GDS is active in this area as well, while partnering to enter new markets in China.
There was plenty of expansion activity in the past and recent weeks. Interxion confirmed plans to expand across its entire European footprint, while Colt briefed us on its APAC and European expansion plans.
Meanwhile, the sector continues to transition. Newly formed providers are taking an asset-light approach and focusing on software and widely used applications, while more providers are continuing to shift into cloud-based delivery models. Ubersmith shared data points that show how its platform is being used to enable this transition.
or