Research firm Tier1 releases report on the tremendous growth that the managed hosting sector has experienced in the past 12 months. This growth is driven by several trends including virtualization, business continuity services and security technologies, driven both by enterprise demand and regulatory compliance.

Despite the dipping economy in the US, there has been increased managed hosting adoption by SMBs and mid-tier enterprises in both the US and Europe. Rackspace, Savvis, AT and T and Verizon Business have been the biggest beneficiaries of this market growth, being the clear leaders in the managed hosting sector. These findings are contained in a report released today by New York-based T1R, an independent research firm that analyzes the financial and industry implications of developments affecting public and private companies within the hosting, IT, communications and Internet sectors.

"There will be continued jockeying and consolidation in the managed services sector as larger storage companies continue to eat up smaller backup-and-recovery service offerings, and encroach more on the territory of managed hosters. Similarly, virtualization, security, compliance, virtual computing and storage, and international expansion will all drive expenditure in the next year," explained Antonio Piraino, Senior Analyst at T1R and author of the report.