Windstream plots cloud computing growth with $310 million deal for Hosted Solutions

Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) is going to the acquisition table again with hopes of gaining a greater foothold in the emerging cloud computing segment by crafting $310 million deal to acquire Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions and data center operator Hosted Solutions.

Already approved by the board of directors of both companies, Windstream says the acquisition will be completed in Q4 2010 after meeting typical regulatory approvals.

So what does Windstream get out of the deal?

By acquiring Raleigh, N.C.-based Hosted Solutions, Windstream will in a single stroke increase the scale of its data center business with five SAS 70 Type II certified data centers located in Raleigh, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., and Boston with a total of 68,000 square feet of data center capacity. When the acquisition is complete, Windstream will have 12 data U.S. data centers.

But the deal is not just about data center space alone. Windstream, which has been expanding its business service capabilities, will also expand its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities (managed hosting, managed services, colocation, cloud computing and bandwidth) for small and medium-sized business customers as well as large enterprises.

While Windstream is not a novice in the business services segment, its acquisition of Hosted Solutions illustrates an ongoing pattern of enhancing its business capabilities through targeted acquisitions.

Following its acquisition of CLEC NuVox--one that Windstream's President and CEO Jeff Gardner said came with "a very aggressive sales force that would help position us to grow top line revenue"--the ILEC bought Q-Comm, one that came with both a wholesale fiber company (KDL) and a CLEC (Norlight Telecom).

 For more:
- see the release

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