AT&T Expands Managed Hosting Services Worldwide For Businesses, Government Agencies

[NewsDesk]

AT&T today announced it is expanding its ability to offer businesses and government agencies globally consistent managed hosting services by opening three new Internet Data Centers (IDCs) in Europe and Asia, while enhancing existing customer support centers in these two regions.

AT&T is opening new IDCs in China (Hong Kong), France (Nice) and Australia (Sydney), bringing its total number of centers to 21 across three continents, including 13 in the United States. Designed and deployed as part of AT&T's overall global network expansion efforts, the centers announced today complement existing IDCs in the United Kingdom (Birmingham), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Japan (Tokyo [two] and Osaka) and its U.S.-based centers in Secaucus, N.J., Los Angeles area, Chicago area, Washington, D.C., area, Atlanta area, Seattle area, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Phoenix area, Orlando and the Dallas area.

The company also is enhancing existing customer support centers in Europe and Asia to build on its networking capabilities and investments to offer globally consistent managed hosting services and predictable applications performance management to enterprises and government agencies. AT&T is leveraging its expertise and portfolio of services to design, deploy, manage and evolve complex hosted environments requiring security, storage and/or content distribution services.

Today's announcement is AT&T's response to businesses' demand for managed hosting services, and directly reflects the company's success in this key strategic growth area. Unlike other hosting companies' centers, the IDCs sit on AT&T's global network, providing hosting customers with direct connectivity to virtual private network (VPN) and other AT&T services.

Overall, AT&T's managed hosting services grew by more than 100 percent in 2002. In addition to existing customers like 1-800-FLOWERS and Sam Ash Music Inc., AT&T in the fourth quarter alone closed more than 240 new hosting contracts with large and medium customers, including MarketWatch.com, The Tribune Company and the U.S. government's General Services Administration.

In Europe and Asia, AT&T also provides managed hosting services to companies such as Jaguar Racing, Novell and Textron.

"Europe and Asia are obviously key markets for global businesses with networking and applications needs," said Pat Traynor, AT&T Hosting and Managed Services Vice President. "We're directly responding to customers' requirements by providing globally consistent managed services and support -- an imperative for any business with worldwide applications and operations."

"AT&T has the unique ability to leverage its enterprise networking expertise, presence, hosting capabilities and application performance management services to comprehensively meet companies' strategic and operational needs," she added.

Via the AT&T global network, the IDCs and support centers rely on an AT&T Labs-developed performance management platform -- Integrated Global Enterprise Management System (iGEMS) -- to proactively monitor and manage customer networking solutions and applications, while delivering performance reporting via industry-leading portal services.

"While other hosting providers are contracting their domestic and international operations, AT&T continues to expand into key European and Asian markets," said Melanie Posey, Web Hosting program manager for analysis firm IDC. "The new data centers, customer support facilities enhancements, and global implementation of the iGEMS platform position AT&T to provide a unique portfolio of managed hosting services on a worldwide basis."

Today's announcement reinforces AT&T's position as the world's leading networking company, providing the solutions required by companies to help them operate and evolve their own businesses.

By offering integrated, end-to-end services, solutions and support, AT&T is strengthening companies' ability to extend their business application networking across partners, suppliers, customers and employees. AT&T's managed hosting services complement and enhance an already comprehensive array of managed services, which are designed to serve any level of customer need, whether AT&T is providing fully managed end-to-end hosting solutions, or customers manage their own applications hosted in AT&T's IDCs.

For more information about AT&T's Internet Data Centers and the Managed Services Portfolio, visit www.att.com/business.

About AT&T

AT&T (www.att.com) is among the premier voice, video and data communications companies in the world, serving businesses, consumers, and government. The company runs the largest, most sophisticated communications network in the U.S., backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs. A leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, AT&T offers outsourcing and consulting to large businesses and government. The company is a market leader in local, long distance and Internet services, as well as transaction-based services like prepaid cards, collect calling and directory assistance. With approximately $37 billion of revenue, AT&T has relationships with about 50 million consumers and 4 million business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications. AT&T has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.