“The market is not declining on IT services. The hardware segment may be on the decline, but on services there is growth. Some segments of the services market may be on the decline, maintenance for instance,” Popescu said. “But on virtualization there will definitely be growth. And the market cannot decline on data centers because it has only started to grow.”
The software and services market was expected to stagnate last year at EUR700 million, according to an analysis of Pierre Audoin Consultants.
Popescu, who has run the data center IBM took over from Petrom in 2010 said that in the first half of this year the number of contracts signed by the company for the data center is on the rise and that others are in the course of being finalized.
“We signed several contracts in the first half of this year, mainly in the second quarter. We expect big names to come to the data center in the second part of the year.”
The companies with whom IBM has signed contracts for the data center include eMag – the largest IT&C retailer and insurers Axa and Allianz. In 2010 IBM signed a ten-year agreement worth “several million dollars” with Petrom to operate the latter’s data center.
IBM pays rent to Petrom for the building and Petrom in turn pays for the services provided by IBM. The data center provides services that go from basic ones such as hosting the servers of other companies up to complex ones such as the hosting of applications.
Clients who buy basic services still dominate, said Popescu. “Most clients place their equipment in the data center. Our target is to offer software as a service, for instance.”
One of the latest clients of the data center operated by IBM is IT security company Bitdefender, controlled by Romanians Florin and Mariuca Talpes. Bitdefender moved part of its equipment into the center operated by IBM and IBM will use a Bitdefender security software for virtual servers. The partnership was sealed at regional level.
IBM has turnover of over EUR50 million in Romania, according to Finance Ministry data. The company also has IT service centers and software development centers that work for foreign clients, which have over 1,000 employees.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)