CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTS
70 over the needs of the technology . By that I mean you ’ d have these large corporates , both in the US and Europe , building data centres with fancy offices and all of the other things they wanted that weren ’ t really based on any technology requirements . The owner-operators came along , at the same time as the providers of connectivity made steps forward in innovation , and showed these organisations a different approach : that they didn ’ t need to spend their own money building data centers ; that the technology had developed to such an extent that it could be located anywhere , in the right environment so that it could run 24 / 7 and be entirely secure ; and that the connectivity was available to give absolute guarantees in terms of operational effectiveness .
It was the genesis of the colocation market . And it meant that companies no longer had to worry about their own data centres , they could scale up faster , it was cheaper and more effective , and that the level of provision was the same for everyone . That in turn made it far more simple for commercial companies below the
multinational level to enter the data centre game .
DC : Can you explain more about the growth of the owner-operator companies and how that has changed the market ?
PP : It was much more advanced in the US in the early stages , particularly in terms of persuading those larger players to take the first steps into colocation . The company I previously
AUGUST 2020