SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Savvis, Inc. (NASDAQ:SVVS), a global leader in outsourced managed computing and network infrastructure for IT applications, today announced that industry analyst firm Gartner, Inc. has positioned it in the “Visionaries” Quadrant in the Magic Quadrant for “Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), North America” published April 16, 2009, and authored by Kelly Kavanagh and John Pescatore. This follows SAVVIS being positioned in the Leaders Quadrant in the Gartner “Magic Quadrant report for North American Web Hosting, 2008,” published April 10, 2008, and authored by Gartner analysts Ted Chamberlin and Lydia Leong.

According to Gartner, companies in the Visionaries quadrant have demonstrated the ability to turn a strong focus on managed security into high-quality service offerings for the MSS market. Vendors in the Visionaries quadrant are often strong contenders for enterprises requiring frequent interaction with MSS analysts, flexible service delivery options and strong customer service.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is widely recognized as one of the most influential benchmarks for enterprises seeking to evaluate managed security services. It evaluates vendors according to ability to execute ─ including overall viability, product capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills, market responsiveness and track record ─ as well as the completeness of vision, which includes innovation and product strategy among other criteria.

In the report, Gartner states that enterprise use of MSSPs continued its steady growth trend in 2008, and macroeconomic conditions and security threat trends will cause that growth to continue in 2009. These same trends, combined with others, such as increased enterprise use of software as a service (SaaS) and the "consumerization of IT," will cause cloud-based security-as-a-service offerings to begin to impact the customer-premises-equipment (CPE)-focused MSSP market in 2009 and beyond.

Also in the report, Gartner states that the MSSPs in North America generated revenue of approximately $570 million in 2007, and Gartner estimates that revenue grew about 15% in 2008 and the number of firewalls and intrusion detection/prevention (IDP) devices under monitoring/management grew 20%. In addition, Gartner estimates that, in 2008, 60% of Fortune 500 enterprises had engaged in some level of use of an MSSP, representing about 25% of enterprise firewalls under remote monitoring or management.

“We are pleased to be positioned on the Visionaries Quadrant in the Managed Security Services Magic Quadrant as we believe it represents significant industry validation of Savvis’ managed security services as part of the IT infrastructure solutions we provide to enterprises globally,” said Chris Richter, VP of Security Services for Savvis. “Managed security is a key component of the virtualized and cloud compute solutions being sought by our customers and we continue to enhance managed security services across our service delivery infrastructure. This allows our enterprise customers to reduce risk as they continually seek to streamline and optimize their IT operations.”

Savvis continues to advance its IT infrastructure services delivery platform and operational support systems throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Savvis currently operates 29 data centers globally, encompassing more than 1.4 million square feet of space designed to support enterprise and government IT operations.

About Savvis

Savvis, Inc. (NASDAQ:SVVS) is an outsourcing provider of managed computing and network infrastructure for IT applications. By outsourcing to Savvis, enterprises can focus on their core business while Savvis ensures the quality of their IT infrastructure. Leading IT organizations around the world select Savvis to help them improve their service levels, reduce capital expense and deal with the rising costs of bandwidth, energy, real estate, staff and expertise. As a pioneer in utility computing, Savvis understands and harnesses the latest advances in technology like virtualization, cloud computing and support process automation. For more information about Savvis, visit www.savvis.net

** The Magic Quadrants are copyrighted 2008 and 2009 by Gartner, Inc. and are reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Savvis Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from Savvis’ expectations. Certain factors that could affect actual results are set forth as risk factors in Savvis’ SEC reports and filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K and all subsequent filings as well as the risk that potential product cost and performance benefits may not be realized for any particular customer. Savvis assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements.