Bangalore: Two of the biggest names in the IT industry; AT&T and International Business Machines (IBM) are joining hands to sell cloud computing services over a private network to a global set of customers.

This move will help IBM and AT&T win new business customers that have had reservations about storing their critical data on a public cloud.

The major beneficiaries from this deal will be the small and medium sized businesses that have found themselves reluctant to store important data on the internet or public cloud given the high risks it involved. The market reputation of both the companies will also help them in attracting more number of business customers.

AT&T and IBM have said that this partnership will attract immense faith as it would comprise of AT&T’s secured telecommunications network and IBM’s data centers that are located on all locations around the globe.

The research firm, International Data Corp. has estimated that the global sales of cloud computing services will be doubled from $40 billion this year to $100 billion by 2016.

The service ‘‘uses private networks rather than the public Internet, which can be vulnerable to attacks, outages, and other risks,’’ said Andy Geisse, the chief executive of AT&T Business Solutions as reported by bostonglobe.com.

Both IBM and AT&T are devoted to providing these services in the market by early next year. This announcement is being seen by many as a strategic step to capture the emerging market for cloud computing services. As a markup step in the partnership, IBM is planning to start its data center in Germany.

Both the companies have had a long history of business partnerships starting from 1999 when IBM sold its global telecommunication network to AT&T. In 2007, AT&T announced that it will be providing its telecommunication services and network management to IBM.