The Shaw Communications building.
Shaw Communications Inc. says it will open a 40,000-square-foot data centre in Calgary and launch a number of cloud computing and data management services aimed at enterprise customers.
In a move designed to strengthen its Shaw Business division – a promising source of growth as its cable television and media businesses come under increasing pressure – the Calgary-based company said Thursday it will open the data centre this fall.
It will be Shaw's first Canadian data centre aimed at serving enterprise customers and it will draw on the expertise of its ViaWest division, the U.S.-based cloud services provider it acquired last year for $1.2-billion (U.S.).
"The Calgary data centre sort of takes a lot of the best-practice learnings from the many years that we've been doing this," said ViaWest president and CEO Nancy Phillips. ViaWest operates 28 data centres in the United States and serves more than 1,500 customers.
Until now, Shaw has offered its Canadian enterprise customers communications products such as phone, Internet and video services. With the new data centre it will start offering services such as the remote hosting of computing programs, data backup and storage, as well as co-location (renting data centre space to clients who manage their own servers).
"This was a natural next step for us in Shaw Business to be able to move up in providing a broader set of services to the business marketplace," said Ron McKenzie, senior vice-president of Shaw Business.
The Shaw executives would not disclose the cost of the data centre, noting only that it represents a "very significant" investment.
Investment analysts have noted that much of Shaw's recent growth has come from its ViaWest acquisition, and its Shaw Business unit has also shown signs of higher growth than its consumer communications business and media division. However, the Shaw Business unit and ViaWest together account for only about 15 per cent of the company's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).