"Dot Bomb" Woes Impact Hosting Expenditures, But Study Reveals [...]

📅 July 18, 2001 - U.S. and Canadian service provider infrastructure expenditures will grow 35%, from $6.5 billion to $8.8 billion between 2001 and 2005, according to a market research study released today by Infonetics Research (infonetics.com).

"The ?dot bomb? wiped out many hosting service provider customers, not to mention several overextended service providers," said analyst John Lawler. "Customers are delaying hosting decisions, adding to the decline in revenue, and service providers are delaying expansion plans."
"But there are still significant bright spots," he added, "and chief among them are content delivery and network-accessible storage. Expenditures for products that stretch the IT dollar by increasing the capacity and scalability of the existing infrastructure will also grow well in excess of other infrastructure product expenditures."
The 145-page, 82-exhibit study presents the product requirements and implementation plans through May 2002 of US- and Canada-headquartered service providers offering shared hosting, dedicated hosting, or co-location services.
Infonetics Research surveyed American and Canadian service providers for whom e-business hosting services are either all or a large part of their business. Examples of data found in this study:
Service providers are making a major push into content delivery as a new source of service revenue: by May of next year, 100% of respondents will offer content delivery as a hosted application (up from 30% this year) The deployment of networked storage continues at a rapid pace: actual storage capacity rises by 67% next year, but the amount of potential capacity, as indicated by new ports, is vastly greater.
Top financial, technical, and operational challenges faced by hosting service providers:
60% say lack of available capital and related issues of revenue and profitability are each primary financial challenges70% say deploying new services is their primary technical challenge80% say generating new business and sales opportunities is their primary operational challenge
The full report, entitled "Service Provider Plans for E-Business Infrastructure and Services, US/Canada 2001," can be obtained through the Infonetics Web site.