Spending on colocation is expected to rise significantly in the next year, with 42 percent of companies planning to invest at least 15 percent more in this area of business in 2016, according to a new report by 451 Research.

The main recipients of this windfall would appear to be Equinix, Schneider Electric and Emerson Network Power, which are reportedly the leaders in their respective field of colocation provision, cooling technology and power management. These findings, reported in the 451 Research Vendor Windows series, are based on answers given by 1000 IT professionals across the globe.

Vendor battles

According to 451 Research’s latest Datacenter Market Sizing Forecast Model, the colocation market grew 11 percent year-on-year (as measured in the first quarter of 2015) and a comparable level of growth will persist until 2018.

In the power equipment sector, hardware from Schneider Electric was used by the majority of enterprise customers surveyed (64 percent). The next biggest vendor had around half of Schneider’s market penetration, with Emerson Network Power kit being installed in 33 percent of the survey group’s facilities.

However, the customer evaluations of Schneider and Emerson were roughly the same, with Schneider somewhat shading the competition through its perceived product features. Emerson was rated more highly for the efficiency of its products.

Emerson also came top of the cooling systems poll, being present in 59 percent of the study group’s facilities and having equipment with the highest customer ratings. The second highest ratings went to a smaller vendor, Johnson Controls, with Schneider ranked third.

“While Schneider is the clear leader in market adoption for power equipment, Emerson is well positioned to challenge their market penetration,” said Dan Harrington, research director at 451 Research. “Emerson has a strong brand presence among enterprise IT buyers as a cooling supplier and is viewed as having highly reliable and efficient air conditioning and handling equipment for computer rooms, especially among large organizations.”

Equinix tied with AT&T and SunGard as the most commonly used colocation providers.

“Equinix leads the pack when it comes to doing what a colocation provider should do best: providing reliable, highly connected and secure facilities,” said Harrington.