Gibraltar: Major E-Business To Set Up In Gibraltar

The Government of Gibraltar has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Ecom Limited (Ecom), a specialist in complex web-hosting facilities, to enable the company to build one of the world’s most secure and robust hosting infrastructures, in Gibraltar. 'Complex web-hosting' is the term used for the accommodation and management of technically-demanding internet websites, which require high resilience, security and reliability.

The Gibraltar-based Ecom, which already holds a Teleport Facility Licence, recently announced the forging of a strategic alliance with Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) of New York, a leading business solutions provider (www.ca.com). Its network will be built utilising Ecom’s own infrastructure and communications expertise, CA’s management solution (Unicenter TNG) and industry-leading security product suite (eTrust), as well as Sun Microsystems servers (www.sun.com).

Ecom will offer a complete web-hosting service, providing global content delivery infrastructures to its clients at a level of reliability, security and service that will place the company at the head of the international, complex web-hosting market. Ecom has arrived at this position, through a carefully assembled set of strategic partnerships with the world’s top corporations in the different market segments used for the engineering of its platforms.

The data centre will be built at Lathbury Barracks, and the Government has agreed terms enabling the leasing of land for that purpose. It is expected that work on the site will commence as soon as all the necessary planning permits are obtained. The web- hosting facility will employ about 75 people, in the main specialists in the IT field, plus around 25 local administrative and maintenance staff. Part of the agreement with Ecom sees job opportunities and training for suitably-qualified local residents being made available and maximised as much as possible.

E-Business transactions, especially of a business-to-business (b2b) nature, are expected to grow substantially over the next 3 to 5 years. Indeed the web-hosting business, which is currently worth about £2 billion a year, is expected to grow to about £10 billion by 2003.

"I am very pleased that we have successfully concluded our discussions with Ecom and that they will be setting up a major web-hosting network in Gibraltar," said Keith Azopardi, Trade, Industry and Telecommunications Minister. "The Government is very eager to capture a slice of this market. This is one of a number of specialist telecommunications and ebusiness areas where the Government hopes to attract new investment to Gibraltar".

Joseph Adir, founder & CEO of Ecom commented: "Ecom has decided to headquarter its pan-European operation on the Rock, on account of its well-regulated environment and international repute as a business centre. It is our intention to not only increase the flow of business done through Gibraltar, but also to enhance the Rock’s overall financial stature by locating a world-class cyber facility, here."