CenturyLink and Savvis Earn Spots on 2011 InformationWeek 500 List of Top Technology Innovators Across America

CenturyLink, Inc., and Savvis, a CenturyLink company, announced their inclusion in this year's InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation's most innovative users of business innovation. The 2011 list was revealed this week at an awards ceremony at the InformationWeek Conference in Dana Point, Ca.

CenturyLink was recognized for its ability to develop and deliver the innovation to keep up with the company's continued growth as a result of its merger with Embarq in 2009 and with Qwest before this year. The company has grown to become the nation's third largest telecommunications provider and now serves consumers and businesses in 37 states. It as well provides data, voice and managed services to business, government and wholesale clients in local, national and select international markets. In July 2011, CenturyLink acquired Savvis, creating a premier managed hosting and colocation provider with global scale.

Savvis was recognized by InformationWeek 500 for leveraging the social networking Jive software in a project that connects internally between company employees and externally with strategic customers through shared documents, blogs, forums, wikis and user profiles.

"We are honored to have both CenturyLink and Savvis earn spots on this year's InformationWeek 500 ranking," said Girish Varma, CenturyLink executive vice president of IT services. "We each have had great success in developing innovative communications services and delivering effective innovation solutions."

InformationWeek identifies and honors the nation's most innovative users of information innovation with its annual listing and as well tracks the research, strategies, investments and administrative practices of America's best-known companies. The InformationWeek 500 rankings are unequalled among corporate IT rankings as it spotlights the power of technology in information technology, or rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders.

"For 23 years, the InformationWeek 500 has chronicled and honored the most innovative users of business research," said InformationWeek Editor in Chief Rob Preston. "In this day and age, but, being innovative isn't enough. Companies and their IT organizations need to innovate faster than ever earlier to stay a step or two ahead of their clients, partners, and competitors. This year's ranking placed special emphasis on those high-octane business innovation innovators."

Savvis, a CenturyLink company, is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises. Near 2,500 in a class by itself clients, including more than 30 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, use Savvis to reduce capital expense, improve service levels and harness the latest advances in cloud computing.

CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. The company provides broadband, voice and wireless services to consumers and businesses across the country and advanced entertainment services pursuant to this agreement the CenturyLink(TM) Prism(TM) TV and DIRECTV brands. Should the contingency arise, the company provides data, voice and managed services to business, government and wholesale clients in local, national and select international markets through its high-quality advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers. CenturyLink as well is recognized as a leader in the network services market by key research industry analyst firms, and is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises through Savvis, a CenturyLink company. CenturyLink's clients ranged from Fortune 500 companies in some of the country's largest cities to families living in rural America. Headquartered in Monroe, La., CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations.

The InformationWeek Business Innovation Network provides IT executives with unequalled analysis and tools that parallel their work flow--from defining and framing objectives through to the evaluation and recommendation of solutions. Anchored by InformationWeek, the multimedia powerhouse that looks across the enterprise, the network scales across the most critical innovation categories with online properties like DarkReading.com, NetworkComputing.com and PlugintotheCloud.com. The network as well provides focused content for key IT targets, just as CIOs, developers, and SMBs via InformationWeek Global CIO, Dr. Dobb's and InformationWeek SMB, as so then as vital vertical industries with InformationWeek Financial Services, Government, and Healthcare resources. Content is at the nucleus of our information distribution strategy--IT professionals turn to our experts and communities to stay informed, get advice and technology technologies to make strategic business decisions.