Sears, the retailer originally paired with Roebuck, existed initially in its own sort of cloud: the mail-order one. But it became encumbered by physical real estate, running until it was crushed by brick and mortar, by the era itself. Now it returns to the cloud in another form: data centers. The opening of a brief post at the Atlantic by Alex Madrigal:

“Sears! Once the catalog king, then an eminent brick-and-mortar retailer, and now, perhaps, a real-estate holding company that leases out space for computers that power the cloud.

Data Center Knowledge reported today that Sears had created a new unit — Ubiquity Critical Environments — to look into repurposing its shuttered stores as datacenters, starting with this one in Chicago.

Yes, this is this week’s sign that the 21st century is upon us.”