With the debut of its Marketplace service, Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is illustrating that data centers are no longer just about selling power, space and cooling, but are becoming a hub where members can do business with one another.
Available to any company that has a presence in any of its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers, the data center provider said that companies and service providers will be able to connect to over 4,000 possible digital service partners, customers and suppliers.
Similar to its Ethernet exchange effort, which brought together Ethernet buyers and sellers, the Marketplace allows companies (traditional wholesale service providers, private cloud providers and trading system providers) another business-to-business networking opportunity. Customers like AboveNet (NYSE: ABVT), for example, can create a customer profile and storefront in the Equinix Marketplace to reach new customers for its low latency High Bandwidth Connectivity solutions.
Prior to the launch of Marketplace, Equinix said that interconnections between its customers grew 27 percent.
"For many companies and industries, data centers are not just warehouses for storing large amounts of information--they have become high performance business exchanges where organizations connect with their ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers in the digital supply chain," said Jarrett Appleby, chief marketing officer for Equinix in a release announcing the service. "Platform Equinix has long provided the foundation for vertical market communities to connect and interact.
To date, Platform Equinix hosts over 700 cloud and IT service providers, 675 high-performance backbone and mobile networks, 450 online media, content and advertising destinations, and 600 electronic trading and financial market participants.
As more of the data center market becomes consolidated and new entrants emerge, Equinix's Marketplace service is a new differentiator the data center provider can use to retain and possibly attract other companies that were considering other data center options.
For more:
- see the release
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