Cologne, 13 April 2010 – The advent of cloud computing is shaking up the IT service market: A current benchmark study by the Experton Group shows that the main players in the IT industry are facing stiff competition from independent medium-sized providers, who are successfully specialising in specific customer sectors or services. Analysts from Experton have identified the medium-sized IT service provider, Pironet NDH Datacenter, as one of the market-leading companies in Germany’s cloud computing sector.

Pironet NDH Datacenter’s outsourcing and cloud computing services are primarily geared towards business customers with 100 to 1,000 PC workstations. According to Experton, the company is among the top four in the market and within the same leader quadrant as Microsoft, IBM and Deutsche Telekom. "As a medium-sized specialist, Pironet NDH Datacenter has a very appealing offering that makes cloud architectures and services accessible and attractively priced to independent medium-sized businesses," declare the market researchers.

German business cloud
The company provides applications as well as IT resources as a "business cloud". This concerns cloud services that cannot simply be ordered over the public internet using a credit card. Instead, the service provider operates business-critical applications in a special secure area for its corporate clients.

Where cloud services are involved, independent medium-sized companies are particularly concerned about security. "Localised services as well as datacenters located in Germany are important deciding factors for many users in these businesses," explains Steve Janata, a Senior Advisor at the Experton Group.

Bitkom President Dr. August-Wilhelm Scheer is also demanding a "German cloud", in contrast to the large US-based service providers, who predominantly produce their cloud services abroad. "A key criticism that has been levied at cloud computing by independent medium-sized businesses is that they do not want to transfer their critical business data outside the country," explains Khaled Chaar, Managing Director of Business Strategy at Pironet NDH Datacenter. Pironet NDH Datacenter uses its own backbone to provide its customers with a managed corporate network as a way of accessing their services in the cloud, which further increases security.

Traditional IT outsourcing plus cloud services
Felix Hoeger, responsible management board member of the Pironet NDH Group, sees cloud computing as an important driver of innovation for flexible IT supply models. However, he does not expect a direct cloud boom among medium-sized businesses, but rather a combination of traditional IT outsourcing and flexible cloud services: "Especially for key processes, companies require IT solutions that are tailored to their particular requirements. Examples of this include enterprise resource planning systems and industry applications. Cloud services via credit card do not make much sense here. However, companies can save on costs by obtaining storage space and processing power for an ERP instance from the business cloud."

Accordingly, Pironet NDH Datacenter is pursuing a combined strategy that combines traditional outsourcing, managed services and cloud computing under the roof of uniform service level agreements. "Our clients are not expecting mass-market, isolated online software offerings, but rather cloud versions of their business-critical applications which are appropriate for companies of their type, including the necessary infrastructure components as well as service which is 'on an equal footing' and orientated towards independent medium-sized companies," says Höger.

The analysts from Experton were convinced by this holistic approach: "Pironet NDH is now also committed to a clear cloud strategy for its independent medium-sized clients, who had previously been offered mainly outsourcing services. Furthermore, Pironet NDH is trying to establish itself as an operator of a cloud operational platform for ISVs and medium-sized software vendors," observe the authors of the study.

Further information about Pironet NDH Datacenter and the results of the study can be accessed from .

Pironet NDH Datacenter is a leading ICT outsourcing vendor for German small- and medium sized businesses (SMBs) and offers a full range of services for the efficient and secure operation of business applications and ICT infrastructures. Core services include holistic solutions and flexible cost/use billing models for the provision of IT resources according to modern on-demand concepts like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Cloud Computing.

The centralization and outsourcing of, for example, business applications from SAP and Microsoft, as well as the use of a network infrastructure also provided by Pironet NDH allows SMBs to significantly reduce their investment and operational expenses for the management of information and communication and concentrate on their core business tasks.

Customers include numerous SMBs as well as international corporations.

Press contact:
Pironet NDH
Thomas Sprenger
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51149 Cologne, Germany
Tel.: +49.2203.93530-1324
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