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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."
"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.'"
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.
Recently decided to buy something from Sears mail order.
It was a total disaster. First, their web site wouldn't take my correct address leading to a 6AM call from the East coast warehouse to sort out the address. They then shipped a cheaper substitute part (different part number) and insisted it was just fine. Wouldn't take a return or ship a replacement. Finally protested the charge to my credit card and got a refund.
Never again.
Ironic that Sears can't even do mail order right these days.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The irony is they (Sears) shut down their Catalog support after the internet started to really take off. They were in a position to be what Amazon is now, back when Amazon was just books, and already had the infrastructure to support it... Even if they just put their catalog online in 1997 (with telephone ordering/payments), they'd still be very relevant today. "We tried that with Prodigy, the Internet is just a fad."
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
There is another angle to this – the REIT tax exemption. Sears is cash poor but land rich.
There is a quirk that Real Estate Investment Trusts don’t have to pay corporate tax if they pay out most of their profits. REITs included apartment and office buildings, public storage, warehouses, and maybe server farms. (IIRC Rackspace was trying to convert. I don’t know what become of that.)
Sears is trying to figure out how to move it assets over. This could be a angle where they rent the building but outsource the server farms to their partners.
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.