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Sears To Convert Old Auto Centers Into National Chain of Data Centers
1sockchuck writes "Sears plans to convert dozens of Sears Auto Center stores into a national chain of server farms, saying it wants to be "the McDonald's or Starbucks of data centers." The strategy is an evolution of Sears Holdings' previously announced plan to turn old Sears and Kmart stores into IT centers. Instead, it will focus on the more than 700 Sears Auto Centers, which include many stand-alone cement buildings on mall perimeters. Ubiquity Critical Environments, the data center arm of Sears, will team with Schneider Electric to turn these sites into data centers. They'll use repeatable modular designs to add power and cooling infrastructure, targeting at least 23 smaller cities where there currently aren't many options for IT outsourcing."
I think it's commendable that Sears is trying something new instead of trying to sue its way out of irrelevancy. Whether or not it will work remains to be seen, though...
Or have malls been giving sweet deals to the big end cap stores? From a DC perspective if you can get servers inside metro Ethernet ranges that opens up a lot of consolidation opportunity to get servers out of closets and other non idea spaces.
No sir I dont like it.
"We at Sears hold substantial real estate with high retail value. So we're going to turn it into something that is best located where nobody else wants to go, since that's where taxes and traffic are lowest."
Wait, what?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They only take Discover though.
But you need demand. Just because your bricks and mortar are in place in small centers it doesn't mean the demand is there. Still though if you've got the assets paid for and in place it's probably worth the try.
I used to buy a lot of stuff from Sears. My shed and garage look like an advertisement for Craftsman. Sadly Even their tools have dipped in quality since being bought out by KMart. I know a few people who were pissed that they received a "made in China" replacement tool for one that was "made in the USA". I'm not as hung up on that. But when the original tool lasted for several decades and the replacement a few months, there's a problem.
The stores were dirty and disorganized the last time I was in one, which hasn't been for several months. In my area they also started closing at 7:00 or 8:00 pm, which has caused them to lose my business on several occasions. I'm not sure why anyone would trust their data in a place that they will never see when they can't even make the public areas of the store presentable. It's kind of sad to watch them die a slow death.
What most folks don't realize is how awful retail's network infrastructure is. Having a data center in the same city will dramatically decrease latency. If they turn around and contract with those malls, they might have something here.
While i think its pointless and will only hasten their demise, at least they are trying to save themselves.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It was over when kmart bought them. Instead of getting kmart prices and sears quality. We got kmart quality and sears prices.
I wouldn't trust Sears to run a vaccuum cleaner.
Most of their internal systems are still green-screens, FFS!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The only bad things I heard about the Sears auto thingy was the prices. With Circuit City gone though, they would do a better installation job on aftermarket equipment like backup cameras and subwoofers than Best Buy. I would think their profits would have gone up after Circuit City closed. What the heck happened?
That's certainly thinking out of the Big Box.
Will these Data-centers defraud their customers like the auto-centers did?
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/23/business/sears-auto-centers-halt-commissions-after-flap.html
Sears has been dead to me for at least 15 years, and it's not due to their irrelevancy. They have destroyed the public's trust in them with very long series of scams and deceptions. Remember the craftsman lifetime unlimited warranty on tools? Try getting them to fulfill that now... they just tell you they don't make that part anymore and offer you a coupon for a new wrench. Fuck sears, they should have died in the 80s.
You need three things to set up a server farm (apart from the servers and people to manage it..)
1. A Building with lots of floor space.... Yea, An ex-auto repair building could do for that. Check..
2. Connectivity to the internet... Uh, going to have to spend money on that one.. NO check..
3. Electrical power, backup power, cooling, security infrastructure? Uh on, we don't have that either... No Check... But you'd have to spend money of all this anyway.
I don't think this will work out all that well for them. All they have is floor space that is likely pretty expensive if it is located near any major retail but it will be fixed in size. They won't be building new buildings here or expanding by adding more stories. They won't be saving any money doing the conversion from auto repair stalls to server racks because they'd have to do that anyplace else they wanted to set this up. What's going to kill them is the network infrastructure, unless they don't care about reliability and have SLA's for their service that matches. Getting redundant high bandwidth links to these buildings could be expensive, if they are not already near high speed network connections. Comparing their costs to their competitors, I just don't see this working out. Their competition will be working on much larger facilities, located much closer to network infrastructure with lower cost structures and less limitations on their building sizes. Sears may be getting the building for free, but their other setup and operating costs will be higher.
About the only way this is going to pay, even marginally, is if they can use their unique locations to provide points of presence for services like Netflix or Amazon video to cache content locally or something along those lines. Other than that, I just don't see this working out.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Jumped the shark.
Bring all your Dataz to Uncle Samz and the Nazional Security Letterz !
Folks, don't eat spam. Here's some real meat: http://scherbius2014.de
Will Craftsman servers come with a lifetime warranty?
Actually, I'm not a hater - I have a lot of Craftsman tools, and have put them through a tom of abuse. They all have survived, despite my best efforts, with the exception of the screwdrivers. What can you do, they wear out, and they've always warrantied them for me.
Or have malls been giving sweet deals to the big end cap stores?
Many mall owners are desperate. No new enclosed mall has been built in the US in the last ten years. (American Dream Meadowlands in New Jersey doesn't count; after two bankruptcies and a roof collapse, they're "on hold".) There are hundreds of dead malls in the US. If you have a use for mall-type space that doesn't have to be near customers, there's plenty of space available.
Making money off their already owned space, lowering latency to local customers using their services and NOT taking up any more parking spaces doing both of the above! I wish more businesses would combine and leverage resources like this. The urban sprawl in the United States is a HUGE part of what's killing it right now.
Reminds me of this story of a data center currently in an old Boscov's that was interested in taking over the entire mall: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/06/13/cybernap-looking-to-expand-into-entire-failing-mall/
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The buildings are made of concrete.
Cement is just 1 ingredient in concrete, along with sand, gravel, and water.
Disclaimer: I work at a Sears store (Well, while i'm finishing college, at least- I'll be an designer/engineer before long. )
I read about this a few weeks ago in an investor press release. It's a nifty idea for sure, but I feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot a bit. There are a *lot* of people who seem to rely on those auto centers, and it definitely brings foot traffic into the stores. People seem to love buying a set of tires, getting a ridiculous amount of reward points back, and then spending it on clothing, or tools and what have you.
I also really question if the back-end infrastructure exists for them to actually do this conversion to data centers as planned. I mean, they can't seem to get better then a 1 Mbps DSL? line to the store I work at (that EVERYTHING, far as I can tell; payment processing, computer terminals for training and paperwork, etc. is tied to) and just that alone seems to cause all kinds of sluggishness on the systems there. I mean, when a 2 minute training video takes 10 minutes to buffer, something just isn't quite right.
There's other issues as well with the IT infrastructure, I think the POS terminal is from 2004-ish, and the software functional, if the DOS style interface slightly archaic. Inventory management, again late 90's era Palm-OS based devices, which I really question how they're still getting repair parts for....
That said, they ARE trying to upgrade equipment. I know they're attempting to phase out the 90's era equipment and replace it with IOS devices (Which actually work rather well, kudos to an IT guy somewhere), but again our particular store doesn't seem to have that upgrade prioritized, for reasons even the regional manager doesn't understand. Heck, even a few stores are experimentally trying full-on RFID tagging. I truly wish I could do more to increase efficiency, but as a cashier, I'm rather limited in what I can do.
I'm sorry the last Sears store you visited was a total mess- I try to to the best I can in my area (mens clothing, lol) to keep things clean, but it's often a losing battle. We're understaffed, if for no other reason then the pay at Sears simply isn't competitive compared to other retailers nearby. For instance, Sams's Club across the street is $9 USD starting, meanwhile we're looking at minimum wage, with no opportunity for an increase.
I hear you about the tools as well- the American made stuff definitely had better quality control. Some of the wrenches and ratchets still are USA made, but I think globalization has been causing that to die a slow death. That said, lifetime warranty is lifetime- If you want to bring in a set of your grandpa's old, rusty craftsman wrenches and trade them in for new ones, You're more then welcome too.
It's been reported that the value of the real estate held by Sears Holdings is greater than the stock-market value of Sears Holdings itself. How can that be?
I've wondered exactly how "valuable" a dead KMart or Sears store really is. After all, what else can you turn it into? The more successful big-box folks like Wal-Mart and Home Depot already have their own big boxes. Plus, KMart and Sears stores typically are in older locations that are in retail decline. For example, the Sears Auto that's closest to me is outside a large indoor mall that's nearly vacant. And the KMart across the street from it currently is in the process of closing.
So what do you put in a retail location that nobody wants to shop at anymore? A data center, of course. Seems like an innovative idea.
However, it remains to be seen whether this will work as a business concept. For example, I assume access to network infrastructure is important. But if it does work, it would "unlock" the value of Sears' real estate that otherwise has little value.
Best of all, if a server rack ever needs to have its oil changed or its muffler replaced, it can be lifted at the touch of a button.
No, it's stupid. But here's what they should do: spin them off into 501(c) 3's and turn them into solar-based (and other) charging stations for electric autos. Use this to start a new brand. Gently and carefully test and enter the brand into your e-stores. Oh why is it stupid? I'm not sure. Probably better to turn those sites into Dr. Clinics, or blood-test labs. Get away from work to go to the Dr. and go shop!
Your idea is dumber. Data centers are in high demand today. Electric car charging is not. Sure some day in the future car charging might be a big thing, but data centers are a proven commodity.
Get away from work to go to the Dr. and go shop!
That's going to be a problem. You see, most of these Sears that are closed were the last or near last stores in their malls to close. The little stores went out first, and the big anchor stores held on as the malls got emptier and emptier. So generally, there's little or no place around them for people to shop.
Who is John Cabal?
In some ways I think data centers have gotten out of hand and created a market for less intensive, more retail-friendly versions.
I get that there's definitely a need for all the security and triple-redundancy that high end data centers provide. But I also think there's definitely a market for a less complex version that maybe doesn't have the kinds of security or redundancy that big operations have. Not zero redundancy or zero security, but a less involved version -- maybe less peering, less security, one generator instead of two, etc.
I work in SMB consulting and there's a certain number of clients who host their own systems in house but could benefit from putting them in a data center, but who don't quite want to pay the costs asociated with the standard model of data center. What they need is a rack with reliable power and cooling and better internet connectivity than they can get from a DSL line + Cable.
A "retail" data center might let them get their toes in the water and solve some short term problems without having to cross the Rubicon into "big time" datacenter use.
The most apt comparison I can make is Snap Fitness vs. Lifetime Fitness. Lifetime has more and better equipment, trainers, a pool, tennis, etc. But some people just want to lift weights and run on a treadmill.
...might be a great name that they could use.
What? Oh wait...
Sears grasps at new business schemes like a drowning man might grasp at straws. One story is that they will discard everything but their insurance business. Remember Sharp electronics? Outsourced EVERYTHING. Today nothing is left but a strawberry farm.
I wonder if they will be any better at running data centers than they were at running auto centers.
We used to take our cars to Sears to get the oil changed.
Nothing complicated, just an oil change.
I'd say they succeeded in changing the oil about two thirds of the time.
But one third of the time, something would go off the rails, and we would go home without the oil change.
Eventually, I gave up going there.
Some time after that, they closed their auto centers.
Sad Really, Sears used to stand for something and unfortunately bad management and ineffective reaction to the marketplace has left them in the position of closing for good. I stopped shopping there permanently after a problem with an appliance, that had the service package and was still under warranty, wouldn't be serviced by them for weeks. They just couldn't get us an appointment. Much of what they sell you can get online from other vendors with better service and for better prices and that unfortunately will be the undoing of a lot of these chains so for me good riddance!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I don't think I've had a problem in the past 15 years or so. My anecdotal evidence is stronger than yours.
are they still around? I haven't seen any Sears store in a decade or so.
I will only consider using them if they promise to start a web series called "This Old Server Rack" with Bob Vila in which he takes old run down servers and makes them run like new. Come on Sears, you have got to have star power!
Monstar L
Sears has deals with local installers who will bring the devices (fridges, dishwashers, dryers, etc). out to your home, install them, and remove the old ones. Amazon doesn't. That's the difference.
They also have a fairly large selection, especially on unusual appliances that other stores don't stock and won't order. (Like say a stove with a downdraft vent fan in the middle of the burners, which was never really in style back in the 80s when they came out.)
The Kenmore brand is just Sears slapping their brand-name on GE, Whirlpool, etc. Often with no changes in hardware, only higher prices and the need to go through sears for overpriced replacement parts.
Quality is hit or miss. Repairs are outsourced to local firms. The sears "warranty" is a complete joke. I had a fridge from Sears. Didn't work right. We'd call under warranty, they'd send the same repair guy out over and over again, who would swap some random part, completely hit or miss, usually miss, and leave claiming "job done". We never did get that fridge to go below 40 degrees. And it's a $2000 fridge. Last time I buy top of the line! Or their "warranty"! (We learned years later there was a recall on the baffler design on that fridge as it kept freezing up.)
The stove I bought from sears. Lets see, the igniters failed and had to be replaced almost immediately. The power cord failed, cut on metal backplate, and had to be fixed. It's almost like it was defective by design, out of the box, to encourage repeated repair business.
Saw the same thing with my laundry washer, a Kenmore brand incidentally, that leaked water. You had to turn it upside down and calk the gasket, otherwise the leak would rust out the bearings and prematurely destroy the washer. Or you could go with annual "official" repairs and just replace the gasket over and over again. Expensive to do even just once, let alone annually!
The dishwasher I bought, also a Kenmore, has had several water leaks including a broken intake valve and more recently hard-water stains clogging the water-intake port. Due to the questionable design of this Kenmore dishwasher it responded to hard water by just pouring water out all over the floor and incidentally rotting out the bottom of my kitchen cupboards.
No, I'm not seeing quality here. Sears is now the last place I look for appliances.
Tool-wise, they have a nice selection. But the quality again is lacking. It's cheaply made stuff, grossly overpriced, with their lifetime warranty slapped on. That warranty is nice, and frequently used. But for the money they charge, I'd rather buy something decent! Or cheaper at Walmart and replace it myself without all the inconvenience.
After all they were in on the original one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_(online_service)
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Oh you mean replace them all with 4 foreigners. Yeah that'll work.
What's with all the old news being posted as new lately? I heard about this Sears things last May.... http://gizmodo.com/sears-plans-to-retrofit-2-500-ghostbox-stores-as-data-510333088
Sears used to be a great place to go for auto service, but the rise of cheap tires and oil changes at places like WalMart really took a bite out of their business. They could have competed on price or quality of service, but I think they just gave up. The last time I was at a Sears auto center, it was a really grim deal. None of the employees seemed that interested in helping me, and their prices were ~30% higher than their competitors.
This strategy of embracing all things internet seems to be their current game plan: when you talk to a salesperson in-store, part of what they're trained to do is guide you through the process of shopping online. Clearly, this doesn't bode well for Sears' brick-and-mortar presence, nor for the employee forced to sacrifice his own commission, but it's where the future of retail is headed. However, to put all your eggs in the internet basket seems unwise. There's always going to be a market for skilled auto-mechanics that are associated with a company with a good reputation, but a Sears data center? I can think of dozens of companies that I'd turn to first.
nothing says "quality" like McDonald's
Sears CEO: "Do you guys remember that kid that used to sell electronics for us that made all those snarky comments then quit in a huff saying he had just been hired to go work for a software company in Seattle? Maybe he had the right idea. Let's all do that."
This maks sense since many of these sit on heavily polluted land and can only be sold off as brownfields. Now they can use the land and buildings that otherwise they'd have to pay to get rid of.
Kriston
The real question is why are they closing those Sears Auto Repair shops? A lot of folks still use them. Are they going to get into a market that they're just trying out, becuase it's IN!!!, and dropping one that works?
Y'know, like having a niche market, and then pissing off that niche by trying to appeal to a different niche which ain't interested, like the skiffy, er, sci-fi, um, syfy channel?
mark "their B movies ain't even fun anymore"
Automotive repair is in itself a lucrative business. The problem with Sears is they have been caught cheating people too many times. They were caught charging people for lift time (1 mechanic, 8 lifts each with a car in the air, and all being charged for wrench time by the hour), selling returned batteries, even after being caught by 60 minutes a couple of times - and just horribly corrupt practices across many stores. These ultimately caused Sears to exit the automotive business after several class action law suits. Now we’re supposed to trust them with data? If you’ve got crappy management who look the other way when you’re screwing people, it really doesn’t matter what you sell - be it tires or teraflops - you’re going to fail.
Data by definition and law requries security. Working out doesn't. Security and redundancy are expensive. Placing expensive equiptment and security measures in high traffic, high cost retail areas push up the price. Now it's not competitive.
stuff that it won't kill you to go offline for a while in the event of system failure. Think a place to put your TF2 server, or a box with encrypted drives to serve as an offsite data center.
It really would be the Mcdonalds of datacenters. Not very fast infrastructure, mediocre service, but it's right there and you can go in and check up on your servers with little fuss.
> from the where's-roebuck-all-this-time? dept.
Unsure about now, but he was on LOST: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Daniel_Roebuck :>