First it sells off their buildings, and today IO, the second-largest private data center company in the world, announced plans to chop itself into two independent companies.
The new company BASELAYER, born out of IO, will headquarter in Chandler, AZ. Their focus will be IO’s modular data center hardware and data center infrastructure management software. IO will continue to market colocation and cloud services. William Slessman, co-founder and former CTO of IO, will assume position of CEO at BASELAYER. George Slessman co-founder and CEO and Tony Wanger President, of IO will remain in their respective roles.
READ: IO data center sold their desert dirt to REIT for $125M
“We have built two strong, but distinct businesses,” George Slessman said. “By separating the two, we create clarity of purpose to accelerate the growth of both companies. This decision introduces two market leaders – each with talent and resources directly focused on their core competencies.
This split doesn’t come as too much of a surprise as IO has been full steam ahead enhancing, building and selling their, now patented, modular data center model. BASELAYER has been responding to their customer’s need and built the next generation of a data center which has all the intelligent management, monitoring and control mechanisms available-and it’s portable. Customers can literally ship their box of info anywhere in the world.
READ: What is this new modular data center model?
“IO must challenge the status quo and reinvent IT to build a sustainable, secure, and useful future for our customers and the world. We must transform the data center,” George Slessman states.
BASELAYER’s mission is to bridge the gap between data center operators and IT.
“This strategic decision creates enormous potential for IO and BASELAYER. Both companies will be sharper and more competitive as leading and stand-alone businesses,” William Slessman said. The split is expected to be completed in early 2015.
Graphics provided by IO Data Center
