Telecom Ramblings

International IP network operator Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC - chart, news, filings) announced today the opening of a new datacenter in Amsterdam.  The new facility, which follows a similar build in London’s Docklands last year, is a part of the company’s push into managed services in the European corporate marketplace.  Their first customer, apparently, is Dimension Data.  This gives them 17 full scale datacenters worldwide, though they offer colocation space out of some 60 sites overall. 

Last September, I noted that Global Crossing seemed to be starting a new initiative in the colocation business, building on the facilities it gained from the Impsat acquisition.  This and other developments have since made it clear that Global Crossing’s datacenter push is highly focused on hosting services for its corporate customers.  They aren’t looking to rebuild GlobalCenter, which they sold to Exodus back in 2000,  and then to compete with the Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX - chart, news, filings) or Switch & Data (NASDAQ:EQIX - chart, news, filings) models.  The business of raw colocation space is a good one, but it is very capital intensive and one that Global Crossing will leave to them.

But then, the current owner of those old GlobalCenter assets from the bubble is [company id=”svvs”, and Savvis is using them now in much the same way – targeting corporate customers with managed hosting and network services.  That offers some perspective on why why Global Crossing has mentioned Savvis in the context of consolidation, although on paper I still can’t make that one work as well as others.