Nasdaq: If Bid Wins, at Least One Data Center Will Close

from www.marketwatch.com:

>>Nasdaq OMX Group and IntercontinentalExchange would close at least one U.S. data center if their unsolicited offer for NYSE Euronext is successful, a deal that Nasdaq has promised would create lower costs.

....

"It would certainly involve closing a data center," Mr. Greifeld said in a call with reporters. But without further research, "it's impossible to know which one would be the right candidate at this point," he said.

Industry experts said a merger of the exchanges would likely choose to keep open NYSE's data center in Mahwah, N.J., that opened last August.

...

Having fewer data centers could lower costs for firms that have to invest significant funds in keeping expensive equipment as close as possible to all four stock exchanges and other major trading venues. Traders will still want to connect to exchange operators Direct Edge and BATS Global Markets, which run out of different data centers.

That will ensure that third-party companies that operate independent data centers, like Savvis and Equinix , still play a role in connecting traders to market data.

Market maker that bought assets from legit Madoff firm moving data center space to New Jersey

from www.northjersey.com:

>>Marinaro expects Surge to relocate its primary data center to a sprawling 338,967-square-foot Equinix facility in Secaucus by February. The facility houses, for example, the primary computer "matching engines" for Jersey City-based stock exchange Direct Edge.

...

"We're going to be in good company" at the data center in Secaucus, Marinaro said. "When you're closer to some of the Wall Street firms that you may do business with, it just [obviates] any latency issues."

Surge will also be leasing space for a disaster-recovery data center at an Equinix site in Ashburn, Va. The firm has leased backup office space at Equinix's Business Continuity Trading Room in North Bergen, should disaster occur in Manhattan.

Surge is Equinix's first client at the North Bergen facility, which is to become operational April 15, said Will Speck, a manager of global marketing for financial services at Equinix.

INSIDE EQUINIX NY4

www.securitiestechnologymonitor.com has a nice slide show of Equinix's NY4:

>>Equinix operates a data center in Secaucus, N.J., that houses securities exchanges such as those run by Direct Edge, risk calculation operations for a bulge bracket investment firm and co-location cages for managed service providers such as Gravitas. Equinix´ International Business Exchange here, known as NY4, possesses "more Internet bandwidth than any other spot on Earth,´´ according to Gravitas Executive Director Brandon Travan.

Rackspace and Equinix Get Boost From Cloud Computing Partnership

Read the whole article at Seeking Alpha:

>>On Wednesday, Dell (DELL), Equinix (EQIX), and Rackspace (RAX) announced that they joined forces to offer an OpenStack demonstration and test environment to customers who will then enjoy the ability to move cloud assets between data centers in different regions. This represents the first implementation of geographically dispersed data centers running OpenStack.

TradeStation Expands Market Data and Trading Operations to Equinix IBX

PLANTATION, Fla., March 30, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

TradeStation (Nasdaq:TRAD), the award-winning broker-dealer and futures commission merchant, today announced the opening of a new TradeStation data center within Equinix's New York facilities. Through this proximity to the New York financial markets, the speed and quality of market data and order execution at those markets for TradeStation's customers are expected to improve. This new facility also expands TradeStation's capacity to support more customers and higher trading volumes. The new facility will replace the company's Richardson, Texas data center, and TradeStation will now have its two data centers in the NY and Chicago metropolitan areas. TradeStation's data centers, which connect directly to all major U.S. equities, options and futures exchanges and to all TradeStation customers' desktops, are designed, leased and operated by TradeStation Technologies, TradeStation's technology affiliate.

"This project is a part of TradeStation's commitment to provide our customers with even faster and higher quality market data and order execution, and supports our strategy of continued growth" said Enrique Pizzi, the Chief Information Officer of parent company TradeStation Group. "The opening of this data center is the culmination of more than a year of research, planning and design. It is the result of a great team effort, and should benefit both current and future TradeStation customers."

John Knuff, General Manager of Global Financial Services at Equinix, the host of the new data center said: "Traders are demanding faster executions and higher quality market data in this increasingly competitive trading environment. Adding TradeStation to our facility enables TradeStation to meet these requirements today and to scale for the future."

About TradeStation Group, Inc.

TradeStation Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:TRAD), through its brokerage subsidiaries, offers the TradeStation platform to the active trader and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation is an electronic trading platform that offers state-of-the-art electronic order execution and enables clients to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate their own custom Equities, Options, Futures and Forex trading strategies.

IntraPower Grows Trusted Cloud Services at Equinix’s New Data Centre in Sydney

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — March 30, 2011 —

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), a provider of global data center services, and IntraPower (ASX: IPX), a leader in the provision of trusted cloud-based IT, voice and data services, today announced that IntraPower will expand its footprint with Platform Equinix to the new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Sydney (SY3) when it becomes operational mid-year. IntraPower is already located with Equinix in Sydney data centers SY1 and SY2. The expansion reflects growing demand for IntraPower’s trusted cloud-based applications and utility-based computing.

IntraPower is an ASX-listed company providing high-availability, on-demand Information, Communication, Technology & Telecommunications (ICT & T) services to over 2,000 customers nationwide. Its Business On-Demand solution delivers unified IT, voice, data communications and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) using next-generation cloud computing technology.

“As an existing Equinix customer, we have been continually impressed by the company’s commitment to excellence, which is consistent with our own,” commented IntraPower Chief Operating Officer, Darc Rasmussen. “Equinix also understands the cloud business. Our need goes beyond access to highly resilient and secure data center services. Equinix’s true value-add comes from its strategy of building an ecosystem of cloud application and service providers in a network dense environment.

With Platform Equinix, cloud services providers can meet customers’ high performance expectations while maintaining control by gaining access to more than 50 networks and interconnection services in Sydney. SY3’s capacity of up to 3,000 cabinet equivalents provides the scalability to cloud providers to facilitate their business growth.

“We’re very pleased to welcome IntraPower to our new SY3 facility. This is another vote of confidence in our premier customer service and operational excellence,” commented Darren Mann, managing director, Equinix Australia. “Platform Equinix enables customers to connect with potential partners and customers to drive growth and generate new business opportunities.”

Smartphone Shipment Growth May Slow This Year, IDC Says

from Bloomberg:

>>Global sales of smartphones will probably increase at a slower pace this year, with Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android likely to become the world’s best-selling smartphone system, according to International Data Corp.

Shipments of handsets that allow users to surf the Internet and download movies and music may gain 49 percent this year to more than 450 million units, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher said in a report today. The rate lags the 74 percent growth last year when consumers made purchases they’d delayed during the recession.

updated MOTIV SDK

We've updated our MOTIV SDK with the latest UHL Tool, and we encourage any developers designing with the MOTIV Dev Platform to update the latest from our Developer Zone...

http://www2.immersion.com/developers/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=549%3Auhl-v3565&catid=110%3Ahome-anroid&Itemid=503

MOTIV UHL v3.5.65 Released

www2.immersion.com

Immersion Developer Zone

Global Crossing hones government sector focus

from connectedplanetonline.com:

>>Connected Planet: Are you seeing opportunities in cloud services?

Sutton: Vivek Kundra, who is the chief information officer for the federal government, included cloud services in his 25-point plan. He said [agencies] should be spending 25% of their budget on the cloud. That’s good for us.

We have partnerships with Savvis, Equinix and Carpathia to use their data centers to host services. On smaller projects, like the hosted interactive voice response system we did for the U.S. Census, we have some capacity in our own points of presence.

Automotive: A Potential Catalyst for Immersion's Growth

Read the whole article at Seeking Alpha:

>>The automotive segment today represents a small share of Immersion Corporation's (IMMR) activity, having ranged historically between 6% and 12% of total revenues. If we look at a chart resuming the vertical's performance since 2003, there's room for a few thoughts: