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Equinix

USINFO | 2013-05-21 13:52

Equinix, Inc.

Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: EQIX NASDAQ-100 Component
Industry	Internet
Founded	1998
Headquarters	Redwood City, California,United States
Key people	Jay Adelson, Founder Al Avery, Founder Stephen M. Smith President and CEO Keith Taylor Chief Financial Officer Charles Meyers President, Equinix North America Eric Schwartz President, Equinix Europe Samuel Lee President, Equinix Asia Pacific
Products	Data centers
Revenue	US$1.607 billion (2011)
Employees	2,700 (October 2012)
Website	http://equinix.com
Equinix, Inc. is an American public corporation that provides carrier-neutral data centers and internet exchanges. Equinix provides network-neutral data centers (IBX or "Internet Business Exchange") and interconnection services. The company offers colocation, traffic exchange and outsourced IT infrastructure solutions to enterprises, content companies, systems integrators and over 600 network service providers worldwide.

Equinix currently operates 98 data centers across 38 major metropolitan areas in 12 countries in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and South America. The company has its headquarters in Redwood City, California, United States. According to the company website, Equinix’s mission is to “store, power, and connect the internet.”

Equinix was founded in 1998 and went public August 11, 2000 and soon after announced the Equinix Foundation charitable fund.

Internet Business Exchange business

Former CEO and current Executive Chairman Peter Van Camp describes Equinix internet exchanges (IBXs) as “international airports where passengers from many different airlines make connections to get to their final destinations.” These internet exchanges route internet traffic between over 600 telecommunications networks worldwide. Equinix IBXs route over 90% of the world’s internet traffic. The company has been able to maintain its dominant market share primarily because of its ability to leverage network effects. In its first few years of operation, Equinix was successful in attracting many of the world’s largest telecom networks due to its large scale and “network neutral” policy, which allows any network to connect with any other network as long as both are customers. Thus, in order to easily and efficiently access the world’s leading networks, other telecom networks are compelled to join the Equinix “ecosystem” as well.

Colocation business

Equinix also provides colocation services to major enterprises, web commerce companies, and cloud computing companies. This enables these organizations to outsource their IT infrastructure so that they can focus on their own core competencies. Equinix colocation centers provide enterprises and web commerce companies with fast, reliable, secure, and cost-effective internet connections and scalable data storage. Also, many major enterprises such as Google and Microsoft use Equinix data centers for disaster avoidance and off-site data backup. In recent years, the company has become very active in the cloud computing space. Because cloud companies store data in clouds rather than on user desktops, they have a significant need for data storage. In a recent interview, CEO Stephen M. Smith said the company’s top priority is to be “the home to as much cloud infrastructure as we possibly can.”

Equinix has been successful in leveraging network effects in its colocation business as well. In fact, CEO Steve Smith says the company’s ability to interconnect its customers efficiently has been its secret to success. Equinix’s vast scale, massive customer base, and technological expertise has enabled it to create “ecosystems” that facilitate efficient interaction between companies, which improves both performance and decreases costs. For example, Equinix boasts the world’s “most robust and mature financial ecosystem” which enables asset managers, research providers, exchanges, and other financial institutions to exchange information as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. Because of this network effect, other financial institutions are compelled to join the Equinix financial ecosystem as well.

History

Equinix was founded in 1998 by Al Avery and Jay Adelson, two facilities managers at Digital Equipment Corporation. The founders believed that existing data centers would not be sufficient to support the rapid growth of the internet and saw the opportunity to deploy data centers on a much larger scale to support this growth. The company quickly began to experience rapid growth and its initial public offering in 2000 raised over $270 million of capital. During the internet/telecom boom, various companies invested in data centers to accommodate the hyper-growth of the internet. When the bubble burst, however, there was an oversupply of data centers and the industry underwent significant consolidation. Equinix managed to survive the internet/telecom bubble and took advantage of the oversupply by purchasing several distressed data centers. In the years that followed, the company experienced significant growth and, between 2003 and 2004, Equinix was the best performing stock on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

In 2007, the company announced a $2.0 billion international expansion plan.[citation needed] That year, the company acquired European data center operator IXEurope, which solidified its position as the leading data center operator in the world. Between 2008 and 2010, Equinix continued its international expansion plan by building or acquiring several new data centers in Europe and Asia-Pacific. In 2010, Equinix acquired Switch and Data Facilities Company, Inc., a U.S. internet exchange and colocation services provider, in a transaction valued at approximately $683.4 million. This acquisition enabled the company to expand its colocation services into new metropolitan markets and ensured that the company maintained its stranglehold on the internet exchange market. Most recently, Equinix acquired Brazilian company ALOG Data Centers, which marked its first expansion into the South American market.

Europe data centers

• France - (2 locations) Paris Roissy, Paris Saint-Denis

• Germany - (6 locations) 3 in Frankfurt (City, North, Morfelden), 2 in Munich, Düsseldorf

• Netherlands - (3 locations) Amsterdam, Enschede and Zwolle

• Switzerland - (5 locations) 3 in Zurich and 2 in Geneva

• UK - (5 locations) 3 in London (City, West, Park Royal), 2 in Slough

U.S. and Canada data centers

• Ashburn, Virginia (Washington, D.C. Metro Area) (3 locations)

• Atlanta, Georgia (3 locations)

• Boston, Massachusetts

• Buffalo, New York[1]

• Chicago, Illinois (3 locations)

• Cleveland, Ohio

• Dallas, Texas (3 locations)

• Denver, Colorado

• Detroit, Michigan

• Indianapolis, Indiana

• Los Angeles, California (4 locations)

• Miami, Florida (2 locations)

• Nashville, Tennessee

• New York City Metro Area (3 locations)[1]

• North Bergen, New Jersey

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2 locations)[1]

• Phoenix, Arizona

• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

• Seattle, Washington (2 locations)

• Silicon Valley, California (3 locations: Palo Alto, California, San Jose, California, Sunnyvale, California)

• St. Louis, Missouri

• Tampa, Florida

• Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Asia-Pacific data centers

• Hong Kong, China

• Singapore (2 locations)

• Tokyo, Japan (3 locations)

• Sydney, Australia (3 locations)

South America data centers

• Brazil - (3 locations) 2 in São Paulo and 1 in Rio de Janeiro

Customers

As of October 2012, Equinix serves has more than 4,000 customers worldwide. More than 200 different carriers and ISPs now participate in Equinix IBX centers, including:

• Abovenet

• Adobe

• Agile Communications

• Amazon.com

• AOL

• AT&T / SBC

• Work the Beat Films

• Centauri Communications

• Comcast

• Electronic Arts

• Etheric Networks

• EWE TEL