IBM to Take Over AT&T’s Managed Hosting Business

IBM is taking over AT&T’s managed application and managed hosting services business, acquiring the equipment used to support those services and access to AT&T data centers where that equipment sits.

Like several other major telcos, AT&T has been looking for ways to offload some of its data center assets since at least early this year. Together, those assets are reportedly worth about $2 billion.

IBM plans to integrate AT&T’s managed services into its extensive lineup of cloud services, the company said in a statement. It expects the combination to make it easier for customers to integrate networks and cloud workloads with their IT environments.

“After close, IBM will deliver the managed applications and managed hosting services AT&T provides today,” IBM said.

The companies did not disclose terms of the deal.

IBM vowed to ensure a “smooth transition” for AT&T’s existing managed services customers.

Other telcos looking for alternatives to ownership of extensive IT services portfolios they built up over the past several years include CenturyLink and Verizon.

CenturyLink executives said publicly that they were mulling a sale of all or some of the company’s data center assets, while Verizon’s plans were leaked to the press. Verizon officials denied the report, which came out in November and relied on anonymous sources, but a new report surfaced earlier this month saying the company was again “evaluating its options.”

In October, Windstream, a much smaller telco than any of the giants described above, sold its much smaller data center business to TierPoint, a data center services roll-up focused on underserved regional US markets.