AT&T Named a Challenger in European Managed Hosting Services Market by Gartner

When it comes to the European market for managed hosting services, AT&T is proving to be a challenger. At least according to Gartner (News - Alert), Inc., which has named the company in its "Magic Quadrant for European Managed Hosting" report.

AT&T was singled out as a challenger in the report because of its strengths in enterprise hosting and management, particularly for complex e-businesses. Although the Gartner report lists a number of leaders in the managed hosting space, Gartner encourages customers to look beyond leaders when they are choosing a vendor.

According to Gartner, what is most important is finding a vendor that is an ideal fit for a company's specific needs, whether that service provider is a visionary, niche player or challenger. The European managed hosting report examines 17 vendors and offers analysis based on their completeness of vision. This includes market understanding, product strategy and innovation and a variety of other criteria. It also assesses participants' ability to execute on their visions, including their capabilities, overall viability and customer experience.

Managed hosting services are defined as those that help businesses simplify the management of their IT infrastructures. Managed hosting agreements include a trusted provider that hosts customer data and applications in their data center facilities and may also manage their computing, network bandwidth and storage capacity accordingly. This service is often combined with or delivered on top of cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

The Gartner report also shows that managed hosting in the European market is mature, although somewhat fragmented. The introduction of cloud IaaS into the market has driven evolution over the past five years, with stronger emphasis being placed on automation, flexible contracts and capacity on demand.