Cupertino Electric Inc., San Jose, Calif., announced last week that the company purchased data center design and commissioning specialist California Data Center Design Group (CDCDG), Fair Oaks, Calif.
“This is an exciting opportunity for both companies,” said Cupertino President and CEO John Boncher in a blog post about the deal this week. “CDCDG exposes Cupertino Electric to new customers and brings a very different process to the mix regarding how they walk customers through setting up a data center. It’s a very different approach from how we at Cupertino Electric would go about it and a really great addition to our current offerings.”
With a team of five principals led by Andrew Nebbs, CDCDG, founded in 1992, may look small, but has worked on some marquee projects, designing and commissioning data centers for a client list including Adobe, eBay, Citigroup, AT&T and GoDaddy, along with a number of U.S. state and federal agencies. The firm has also been expanding its range of work outside the United States.
Cupertino intends to let CDCDG continue operating as an independent division of Cupertino Electric “to maintain the technology- and vendor-agnostic position that the company has forged in the data center industry.”
CDCDG will retain its name and philosophy, while leveraging the additional resources and infrastructure of Cupertino Electric, Boncher added. “We can augment their infrastructure with things like real-time budgeting capabilities. We’ve got an enormous staff of estimators, project managers and field personnel who can also provide constructability analysis and scheduling suggestions to give them real pre-construction support.”
“There is definite value in having a third-party, independent commissioning firm involved with certain data center projects. Where we’ve provided construction services, CDCDG can supplement our efforts with unbiased commissioning efforts. We see this as a complementary offering.”
Boncher highlighted the value of having an independent commissioning service provider in a market where up-front cost is increasingly a primary concern. “Some of our data center developers are adopting a plans and specs, low-bid approach in an attempt to get to the best first cost,” he wrote. “While we don’t want to second-guess the decisions of our respected customers, this can sometimes expose an owner to quality issues. We see great need for expert commissioning services like those offered by CDCDG in this new era of data center construction. When customers have the opportunity to use third-party commissioning, it’s a great way to get a clean set of eyes to review the design. By keeping the folks at CDCDG agnostic, we can also offer that to Cupertino Electric customers.”