EQUINIX NABS DIGITAL REALTY CTO TO SPEARHEAD HYPERSCALE MARKET PUSH

Equinix is bolstering its ranks to address the demands of a renewed effort to capture a larger slice of the hyperscale datacenter market, with the appointment of former Digital Realty CTO Jim Smith.

An Equinix spokesperson told Telecom Times that Smith had been named as the interconnection specialist’s Hyperscale MD.

While Equinix has been largely focusing on colocation and interconnection, its main rival Digital Realty has priously opted to target the wholesale – or hyperscale – opportunity around the datacenter requirements of major cloud platforms.

Equinix interim CEO Peter va Camp said the company’s first dedicated datacenter build as part of its hyperscale drive had just kicked off in Paris, with the facility (Paris 8) slated to come on stream by year’s end.

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Equinix Interim CEO Peter van Camp

“We are also progressing well with financing structures that will allow us to pursue this important market with limited balance-sheet exposure,” he said. “We expect to add a handful of strategic builds across key markets over the next year, and we have a healthy pipeline of attractive hyperscale opportunities.”

 

Commenting on the 2018 Q1 earnings, in regards to Equinix’ plans for the hyperscale market and Smith’s appointment, Equinix president of Strategy, Services and Innovation Charles J. Meyers said the firm would be approaching this market opportunity based on the particular features of customer demand.

“And [also] which investments and projects we think are creative to our leadership position in the cloud-enabled enterprise ecosystem,” Meyers added. “We’re building a very robust funnel of those opportunities. We’ve had a very positive response from the customer set. Jim Smith is now on board as a full-time employee.”

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Equinix Hyperscale MD Jim Smith

Meyers said Smith would be able to draw on exceptional experience.

“We’re building funnel quickly, ideally what we want to get to is a situation where we have a highly responsive, agile capability to respond to these hyperscale requirements – the ones that we think are strategic.”

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