Carrier Troubles Good For Biz At Dimension Data

Ettienne Reinecke, CTO of Dimension Data, which is commonly known as Didata, said the implosion of giants such as WorldCom and Global Crossing, coupled with their inability to continue a strategy of marketing managed services offerings beyond customer premises equipment (CPE), has dramatically changed the MSP landscape in just 18 months. They simply don't have the money anymore, Reinecke said.

"We certainly are starting to pick up more and more business," he said.

In fact, Didata is getting inquiries from carriers and service providers about partnering, a maneuver that was met with resistance before.

"Some have even approached us for resale of our services, as opposed to doing their own, particularly in the IP space, so that's interesting," Reinecke said. "But if you want to go beyond the CPE, you have to get to the source of the traffic, and many [carriers and service providers just don't have the credibility, or the skills and experience."

Didata, which has global headquarters in South Africa and U.S. headquarters in Reston, reported worldwide sales of $2.5 billion in 2001. The company also operates in Asia, Australia, Europe and South America.

Founded in 1983, Didata focuses on network infrastructure management, application integration and e-business consulting and development.

In the managed services arena, the company offers hosting and remote management services, which include maintenance of clients' routers, switches, telecommunications circuits, storage and applications via a secure, dedicated frame relay or IP connection.

Didata provides remote network management via the company's Global Services Operating Architecture (GSOA), in which clients have their own IT infrastructures. Didata runs about 25 operation centers that manage more than 150,000 devices as part of its GSOA.

Didata is also working to win new accounts by partnering on managed services solutions with large infrastructure companies such as Cisco Systems, SAP, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

In July, HP and Didata joined forces to market Didata's application hosting and managed services solutions to SMBs in North America.

Matt Lane, director of marketing for the Americas at HP, said Didata's experience in the midmarket and HP's strategy of targeting the midmarket solely through partners make the partnership a great fit for both companies.

"Having Didata as a service provider partner is very significant for HP and of key importance," Lane said. "The relationship has been expanded due to Didata's additional services and expertise, such as managed services."

As part of the agreement, Didata uses HP products such as its Always-On Internet Infrastructure family, which includes Unix and Windows servers, storage solutions, HP OpenView enterprise management solutions and HP MC/Serviceguard. Didata manages the customer's network, and also configures and monitors servers, operating systems, applications and databases.

Greg Hoogerland, executive vice president of managed services for Didata's North America division, said more customers are seeking third-party providers to monitor and manage networks. Customers are looking to resolve problems through a single point of contact, he said.

"What we're starting to see now is customers who want us to spend more time thinking about ways to enhance their networks and improve their network reliability," Hoogerland said. "We've made the investments and have the experience to [take advantage of that demand."