How much does the A T & T announcement hurt EXDS? This means both WCOM and T are jumping full into website hosting right off their backbones. EXDS may have difficulty keeping up. I would think that if the big T is planning on getting into corporate website design and hosting, that it has to hurt EXDS in the long run.
EXDS dropped like a rock after the initial Tuesday announcement by AT&T. T said they plan on dominating the webhosting business by building 26 new domestic Internet data centers and doubling the size of their existing centers.
I have to think that the entrance of AT&T into the picture does significant damage to the EXDS business model. AT & T said that there approach is to stronghold major companies that want world-class Web hosting, cutting into businesses the likes of WCOM and EXDS.
BRIDGEWATER, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1999 SEP 15 (Newsbytes) -- By Steve
Gold, Newsbytes. AT&T [NYSE:T] has announced plans to build 26 Internet
data centers across the US, allowing its customers to host their Web
sites with high-speed connection to the Internet backbone.
The announcement mirrors similar moves that AT&T's arch-rival MCI
WorldCom has been making in the last 18 months. The MCI WorldCom
initiative also extends to the carrier offering Web-based audio ad
videoconferencing services to its customers.
The AT&T program is a little less ambitious, but what the plan lacks
in technical offerings it makes up for with geographic coverage, as
well as the fact that the data centers will be co-located on the
carrier's OC-48 IP backbone.
Because each center is hosted on to the carrier's main IP backbone,
AT&T plans to trial an Internet caching and distribution technology
that it says will improve Web site performance, as well as speeding up
the delivery of Web pages to Internet users.
Under the 26 data center program, AT&T plans to double the size of
its existing centers in New York, San Diego, and San Francisco by the
end of the year, as well as adding new centers in the Washington, D.C.,
Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle areas by
the end of 2000.
Janet Wyles, a spokesperson for AT&T, told Newsbytes that the carrier
is also planning on opening data centers outside of the US in at least
three locations: the UK, Germany and the Asia/Pacific region. These
centers should also be operational in an end-of-2000 timeframe.
"AT&T is more fortunate than most in having central office locations
which are now becoming free," she said, referring to the many AT&T
exchange sites which, because of the much smaller switches needed, are
now becoming vacant.
"We've identified at least 1.3 million square feet of space which we
can use for our data centers. This means we have our own offices, with
direct access to our own network," she said.
AT&T says that, by locating the data centers on its OC-48 Internet
backbone, the carrier can deliver bandwidth-on-demand to meet business
needs.
Wyles said that the data center move builds on the fact that AT&T is
one of the first ISPs in the US to commit to upgrade its network to
OC-192 speeds in the first half of 2000. |
