Data Center Jobs

A number of 'data center' job openings have come up on my radar recently and so I went digging. Maybe the new year means new budgets and new initiatives to hire and fill data center jobs that the 2009 fiscal year just didn't allow. Maybe it's an indicator of a hot job market for the data center industry in 2010. Maybe I need to surf the web a little less and stop reading into things so much.

A nice trending tool for job searches can be found at indeed.com - a job search engine. Check out this graph on job trends for postings containing "data center" in them.

"data center" Job Trends

"data center" jobs

One of the items that started my search for data center jobs was a number of openings for the Google facility in Belgium. There were at least 10 'data center' related postings on LinkedIn by Google just today. Three of them were for the Saint-Ghislain, Belgium location. I've been very intrigued by Googles Belgium location ever since the Chiller-less data center information was out and I really think the 'follow-the-moon' concept is interesting.

On Google's web site they list current engineering openings for the Council Bluffs, Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon and South Carolina locations. Here is the Indeed.com job trends search for Google:

google Job Trends

google jobs

One final graph of interest given the acquisition of Switch & Data by Equinix:

equinix,"switch and data" Job Trends

equinix jobs - "switch and data" jobs

Merger and Acquisition Targets

Mergers and acquisitions are always fun to speculate on. In this industry it seems like a week doesn't go by where some M&A activity is happening. With the recent Equinix acquisition of Switch and Data I have to wonder if more data center industry acquisitions will happen before the end of the year. Both Google and Cisco have said that shopping sprees will continue to gain speed in 2010.

thedeal.com had a Barron's article summary that intrigued me today about M&A speculation. The article points to 10 technology companies that are potential takeover candidates, including several that I have thought of:

1. Riverbed (RVBD | $1.53B market cap): major competitor to Cisco's WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration products. I've always thought Cisco would buy them, but perhaps HP is better suited.
   
2. NetApp (NTAP | $9.63B market cap): another possible target for Cisco. Otherwise maybe HP or Dell?
   
3. F5 Networks (FFIV | $3.73B market cap): No idea; maybe HP or EMC
   
4. Brocade (BRCD | $3.69B market cap): seems like HP is the lead candidate... if not, maybe EMC or IBM
   

and others.... Check out the complete article and list here.

Switch and Data Shareholder Investigation

There was an interesting development in the Equinix acquisition of Switch and Data late this last week. Kendall Law Group announced a shareholder investigation into Switch and Data Board of Directors in connection with the proposed acquisition by Equinix.

Their release states:

"Kendall Law Group’s investigation concerns whether the consideration to be paid to shareholders below the fair or inherent value of the Company and whether the directors and may have breached their fiduciary duties by not acting in the shareholders’ best interests in connection with the sale process."

Kendall is a national law firm and are either very large, or sue-happy, because there were 8 other investigation or class-action lawsuits announced last week according to their site.

The law offices of Howard G. Smith are apparently investigating as well.

Data Center Stock Index Update

As I approach almost a full year of tracking my data center stocks, I thought I would post the chart for the wild ride it has been. I think for the most part these stocks have weathered the recession pretty well, and as you can see, they are doing quite well lately. Reference this blog post to see what stocks are included in my capitalization-weighted index.

Here is the October 2008 through August 21, 2009 graph:

Earlier this year I started a second index: Equinix, Savvis, Switch and Data and Terremark. Here is the graph for that index.

Data Center Stock Market News

Just a couple of items I noticed today in regards to the data center stocks I monitor. First, is an update to the data center stock index I started last year. It has been a roller coaster -- here is the latest graph:

More details on what the index is comprised of can be found here.

The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index has also been graphing quite nicely the last 3 months.

The second story was one I some how missed last week -- Wachovia resumed coverage of the data center space. They immediately rated Equinix and Switch & Data with OUTPERFORM.

"Both companies have high visibility into its revenue base and low churn driven by 1 – 3+ year contracts with escalators. EQIX, SDXC, and other network neutral data centers benefit from a supply demand imbalance due to growth in IP and internet traffic and limited available space close to fiber hubs for telecom equipment and networking gear"

Also late last week submarine transport cable provider Hibernia announced they have expanded into Equinix's LD4 London Slough IBX data center.

Earlier today Datacenterknowledge reported on VMWare taking a 5% stake in Terremark. In terms of institutional ownership, that puts them in 2nd place, behind Ashford Capital Management, who has a 7.98% stake. I thought the comment on the BusinessWeek investing site was interesting:

"There is significant interest in TMRK by institutional investors. The 29.13% of the shares outstanding that they control represents a greater percentage of ownership than at almost any other company in the Specialty Telecommunications industry."

Data Center Stocks

Remember the part about the economy getting worse before it gets better? Well.... the data center stock index I started back in October continues to set new lows. Today's value was $16.41. I also started tracking 4 colocation companies in a separate index; Equinix, Terremark, Savvis and Switch and Data. Here are my Google Spreadsheet charts for those indexes:

DataCenter Stock Index


Colocation Stock Index




Forbes reported today that Google and Cisco are being eyed as possible Dow candidates. Cisco is getting almost as good as Apple at creating a buz on the net. Eweek reports that Cisco is planning to unveil a new data center strategy on March 16. Much of the speculation was about their new servers, potentially equipped with VMWare software.

"The company would not disclose details of the March 16 announcements on Monday, but a spokeswoman acknowledged that the event would be related to the
speculation. Chief Executive John Chambers and other Cisco executives will
unveil new technology and partnerships, Cisco said."

Speaking of creating a buzz.....I think this video at the Onion is perhaps the funniest one they have done in some time (and they do some funny stuff!).

Finally -- listen to the master investor for a good big picture on the economy and where we are going ; Warren Buffet talks on CNBC.