Incubated with Partners to Safeguard their Customers’ Infrastructure with High Availability Data Center Services

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2009-- Switch and Data (NASDAQ: SDXC), a leading provider of network-neutral data center and Internet exchange services, today introduced its Alliance Partners Practice. Switch and Data has incubated this practice in a two-year collaboration with leading channel partners. The company supports its partners with a complete suite of online tools, partner certifications, and dedicated relationship managers designed to meet the unique needs of value added resellers (VARs), system integrators, and solutions providers. Switch and Data is now ready to expand the program and enroll additional Authorized Agents looking for new ways to generate reliable revenue, build stronger, more strategic customer relationships, and meet their customers’ unique infrastructure availability and latency requirements.

Switch and Data’s Alliance Partners Practice helps its Authorized Agents tie together their customers’ infrastructure with industry-leading data center services in ways that address many partners’ most urgent challenges. These include solidifying customer relationships in a highly competitive environment, avoiding outages and downtime which can threaten customer relationships, and improving margins with new recurring revenue streams.

The practice was designed and developed over a two year period with a group of charter partners which includes many of the leading companies is the channel world. These charter partners are already winning big deals and landing major deployments in Switch and Data’s footprint of 34 data centers across 23 markets in the U.S. and Canada. The charter partners include: Allyance Network Communications, Inc., Bandwidth Advisors Inc, Digital Connectivity Resources (DCR), Invictus Converged Solutions (ICS3), Presidio Inc., Silent Partner and Venture Group Enterprises (VGE).

“Solutions providers need to work with companies that not only offer the products and services that help them deliver solutions that will meet today’s CIO requirements for quality and value, but also understand the unique needs of channel partners,” said Joe Mileo, Vice President of Indirect Channel Sales at Switch and Data. “Switch and Data has taken the time to understand these needs and provides a complete package of tools and support to enable channel partners to deliver best-in-breed solutions.”

Switch and Data’s Alliance Partners Program helps VARs, system integrators and solutions providers become Authorized Agents by combining their expertise and core competencies with Switch and Data's offerings. Benefits include:

• An industry-leading colocation infrastructure with 34 data centers in 23 markets
• An extensive product and services portfolio designed to meet the specific needs of multiple industry segments
• A competitive compensation plan based on a lucrative annuity payment schedule
• A dedicated channel manager to provide prompt support and ongoing relationship management
• A comprehensive training program culminating in formal certification
• Online tools, systems and resources to support your sales efforts
• Marketing and co-branding support
• Customer-solution engineer assistance for presales technical support

“We joined the Switch and Alliance Partners Program because we were looking for a true partner,” said Kevin Francis, Principal of Silent Partner. “Switch and Data provides us everything we need including power, proximity and connectivity – all will empower us to help our customers achieve their business objectives and grow in the future.”

Switch and Data’s Alliance Partners Program is comprised of a team of professionals with 50 plus years of combined channel sales experience. The company’s experts help partners deploy the best configuration of space, power and connectivity to support their customers’ business infrastructure solutions.

About Switch and Data

Switch and Data is a premier provider of network-neutral data centers that house, power and interconnect the Internet. Leading content companies, enterprises and communications service providers rely on Switch and Data to connect to customers and exchange Internet traffic. Switch and Data has built a reputation for world-class service, delivered across the broadest colocation footprint and richest network of interconnections in North America. Switch and Data operates 34 sites in the U.S. and Canada, provides one of the highest customer satisfaction scores for technical and engineering support in the industry, and is home to PAIX^® — the world's first commercial Internet exchange.

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Source: Switch and Data

STC Associates
Jennifer Handshew, 212-725-1900 ext. 228
jhandshew@stcassociates.com
or
Switch and Data
Chris Reid, 813-207-7722
creid@switchanddata.com