Making the Most of the Houston Tech Hub’s Market Advantages
When the business leaders of the world think of where the innovative IT hubs are, cities like New York, London, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong are normally top of mind. The idea and appeal of silicon valleys has moved far beyond Northern California, and many like to think they know exactly where high technology and development lives — but key advantages often await a step beyond.
Today, Houston has undoubtedly been making space for its own name among the world’s highest-ranking and most well-regarded tech hubs. Some articles have even stated that Houston’s tech ecosystem may be one of the top in the world for emerging startups. That might be a surprise to some, but to those that know Houston it’s clear to see why this Texan city is climbing the ranks. So, what makes Houston an ideal place for innovation to grow, and how can organizations use this location to their benefit?
Houston’s Tech Origin Story
The city of Houston has done an amazing job to drive innovation and growth throughout its development. A perfect example of that was in 2018 when the City of Houston established an alliance with Microsoft. This digital alliance, which has since been expanded, set up some unique foundations to help move the needle across big data, artificial intelligence and the digital economy as a whole — as well as to help drive economic resilience by skilling and reskilling the local population for a digital future. All of this is underscored by the long-term vision for Houston as a smart city. Furthermore, numerous efforts to empower and equip tech-driven startups have emerged, further reshaping this former oil town into one of technological opportunity. (You can get a more complete picture of that transformation here.)
In short, technology has always been top of mind in this city, so the way the market is maturing is ideal for capitalizing on built-in digital and infrastructural benefits.?
Finding Partnership In Market
Strong technological roots and a booming market are just the beginnings of any organization’s winning digital transformation strategy. Making the most of any market comes down to finding a way to turn these existing resources into applicable, actionable plans — like turning raw materials into a refined, high-value product.?
Long before Houston’s strategic tech partnerships and full-stem-ahead startup culture, Stream Data Centers was in the market supporting as a strategic infrastructure partner. In fact, our company has had a decade-long presence in Houston (thanks to our speculative development strategy, which helps us look into the future of demand), and we’ve grown our resources there along the way to support emerging and evolving needs. We bring experience and resources to the table that turn Houston’s existing advantages into business possibilities. Let’s explore that:
Our campus in The Woodlands builds on Houston’s strong foundations from the ground up. To start, the facility is located 75+ miles from the Gulf Coast, outside of FEMA’s 500-year floodplain (which means it remained high and dry throughout the 1,000-year storm of Hurricane Harvey). Plus, when Hurricane Uri hit, all our backup systems performed as designed, and customers were not impacted. So, thanks to the extensive planning by our Energy and Site Selection teams, any of Houston’s supposed drawbacks were mitigated while keeping all the location benefits intact — that’s the necessary balance of any strong market presence.?
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Houston I also provides convenient proximity to local businesses and amenities without being close to any external industrial uses, rail lines or flight paths, making it geographically strategic and secure. In fact, let’s just get all the other selling points out of the way. In Houston, we deliver:
Still, what really makes the difference in establishing a truly strategic presence in any market is a data center partnership — and that’s an asset that more organizations are realizing is necessary to the growth this market is enabling them to pursue. Where historically the Houston market mostly consisted of enterprise companies who owned and maintained their own data centers, colocation maturation has seen a growing number of enterprise users seeking external data center providers they trust and transitioning their workloads to colo and the cloud. As an example, our partnership with T-Systems in this market enables us to double down on delivering even more critical services with confidence.
We pride ourselves on our customer care and service standards, and in our minds (and the minds of our customers), that’s the secret to making great IT moves. Those that trust us with their IT would say that what makes our services and solutions great are their ability to make the market work for them, not vice versa. Our Woodlands data center campus checks all the technical boxes: highly resilient infrastructure, 2N critical load, Tier 3 design, dual underground utility feeds — all the table stakes. But it’s not just that, we take pride in making leasing a great experience.?
We’ve been doing this for more than two decades across our entire portfolio, and our original founders are very active in the business with no plans to go anywhere — that’s true stability. Not to mention, it’s a true comfort for customers to partner with a provider who delivers technically and has the tenure and expertise that’s here at Stream.?
At the end of the day, we’re just great people who enjoy working with our customers as we strive to keep one-upping our own best-in-class status. Talk about southern hospitality.?
So, whether you’re already at home in Houston or you’re looking to make your play, here’s the takeaway: Houston is a great place to do business and house IT — but there’s always a way to take that advantage a step further, and it comes down to how you partner up.?
If you’re interested, feel free to reach out to me personally or check out our campus here.?
Sales Manager
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