Big Blue aims to be the Web host of choice

Armed with its professional services legacy and the might of Big Blue at its disposal, IBM Global Services is on the brink of dominating the Web-hosting market.

Toward that end, IBM Global Services this week unveiled 30 offerings for its Web-hosting customers and emphasized its ability to provide software, hardware, and services all with a single point of contact.

The services include security design and assessment packages, retail Web site construction, and support for Linux RedHat 6.2 on Intel, said Jim Gant, vice president of ebusiness hosting at Somers, New York-based IBM Global Services.

IBM's rivals do not intend to "let IBM just walk away with [the market]," said Mark Schull, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Laurel, Maryland-based Digex Inc. "Just as we look at IBM as a prime competitor, it's very clear that so does Oracle, so does Sun, [and] so does Accenture," Schull said.

After acknowledging IBM's surge in the Web-hosting market, Schull said users should be wary of aligning themselves with a technology provider rather than an independent hosting provider such as Digex.

But users such as the National Basketball Association have had few reservations about signing on for Global Services, said Michael Gliedman, vice president and CIO of the New York-based NBA. The sports juggernaut chose IBM to handle the extreme traffic spikes of its Web site and NBA.com store that occur while games are in progress or during special events.

"[IBM] has done such an impressive job with heavy [traffic] sports sites like the Olympics and Wimbledon," Gliedman said. "When we were looking at hosting providers, IBM was a natural option." Global Services serves as the host for eight NBA Web servers, six application servers, and six database servers in its Southbury, Conn., datacenter.

The greatest challenge that IBM and Digex may face is a slowdown in the managed Web-hosting market, said Dana Tardelli, an analyst at Boston-based Aberdeen Group. Even so, Digex could prove to be the only equal to IBM Global Services, according to Tardelli. Digex, now a part of Worldcom, is set to leverage XML and Worldcom's infrastructure and bandwidth to provide a compelling degree of flexibility in hosting third-party applications, officials said.

» posted by abennett

InfoWorld.com

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