Eaton’s plans and ambitions after Wright Line acquisiton

In early August, Cleveland-based Eaton Corporation purchased custom data center rack and cooling enclosure vendor Wright Line.

“The short term value to us is that we’re broadening of our portfolio. We have a robust UPS business, nice portfolio of power distribution. But we want to grow our portfolio to be a bigger solutions player,” said Ed Komoski, president of power quality at Eaton.

The Wright Line acquisition could be the next step for Eaton to compete toe-to-toe with the data center giants like Emerson (Liebert) and Schneider (APC) with a full spectrum of infrastructure.

“The customized racks and close coupled cooling will evolve over the next decade and grow,” Komoski said. “We want to build upon the thermal management that Wright Line brings us.”

Komoski said Eaton will likely keep Wright Line as the product family name, but Eaton will be the overarching brand.

Prior to the acquisition, Eaton was using Wright Line airflow management products in its own data centers.