Excerpt from: Tech M&A Talk
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| September 11, 2008 | | Tech Giants See Clients Lower Costs By Going Green | | Independent technology market research firm Forrester Research published a report Tuesday describing the effect the troubled US economy is having on enterprise IT spending. According to Forrester, 43% of large businesses have cut their IT budgets. But despite this trend, Forrester has seen a steady demand for IT services. (They report significant percentages of IT executives actually increasing their spend on certain IT services.) An article featured in Tuesday morning’s Wall Street Journal corroborates Forrester’s findings – at least as they pertain to IT services in green technology. Large IT services providers are looking to the data center as a way to enable their customers to realize what have become front-of-mind cost savings – and make a buck or two themselves while they’re at it. In fact, the WSJ reports that IBM’s Green Data Center Services business signed $300 million in orders in Q4 2007 alone. Also mentioned in the article is Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, a consulting company that specializes in strategic technology planning, design, and operations support for large-scale data centers. (Updata served as the sole financial advisor to EYP in its sale to HP.) Enterprise customers are increasingly asking their IT vendors to help them come up with cost-saving strategies. The data center is a popular starting place. Even something so simple as physically rearranging servers can have energy-saving (and by extension cost-saving) effects. As customers’ demands for energy- and cost-efficient IT solutions continue unabated, tech vendors are meeting those demands with strategic M&A. Look to the tech behemoths and others to make more acquisitions in the green technology space to bolster their energy-efficiency offerings as it is sure to only heat up in the coming months. | | |
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