IBM yesterday duly announced its entry into the disaster recovery market in the US – and is likely to follow suit in Europe in the not-too-distant future, because it says it regards the market as an attractive business opportunity. The company announced limited availability of what it is calling IBM Business Recovery Services, providing access for both mid-range and large systems customers to a business recovery centre for recovery plan testing and disaster recovery operations. IBM points out that some organisations – financial institutions and government agencies are required by regulation to have business recovery capabilities to protect the assets of their clients. IBM is now offering one, three and or five-year contracts from the National Service Division. Charges will range from $500 a month to $40,000 or more. The service will initially be offered on three mainframes and a large AS/400 in Tampa, Florida, but a bigger operation is due to open in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey in the third quarter. There are AS/400 back-up centres in Atlanta and Detroit, and IBM plans many more of these. The US market is estimated at $200m a year by the two main players, Sungard Data Systems – who saw its shares fal 50 cents to $13.75 on Tuesday’s warning (CI No 1,149) – and Comdisco Inc, for whom it is only 10% of its business – but they see it doubling or quadrupling over the next few years.
