Industry Spotlight: Info Tech on the Silicon Prairie

Choosing the city where you’d like to pursue your MBA means considering a number of different factors — among them, the type of industry landscape offered by each metro.

Although the Silicon Valley may seem to be the center of information technology, there’s no need to worry if the west coast lifestyle isn’t for you. Down south, another tech center is booming: the “Silicon Prairie” of Dallas.

Information Technology in Dallas

More than two dozen Fortune 500 companies call Dallas their home, as well as twenty-five billionaires. Each year, talented graduates from over fifty colleges and universities enter the workforce.

Students pursuing their MBA can concentrate in information technology at a number of universities in Dallas, such as the Baylor University – Hankamer School of Business Management Information Systems program, or even with a joint MS/MBA in Information Technology Management at the University of Texas at Dallas – Naveen Jindal School of Management.

Once the degree is in hand, there’s no limit to its uses. Below are just a few of the info tech companies which truly make Dallas the Silicon Prairie.

Major Players on the Silicon Prairie

ACTIVE Network, LLC 

Headquartered in Dallas, ACTIVE Network is a multinational corporation providing activity and participant management software. Founded in 1999, ACTIVE Network provides a variety of software services, varying from event registration and marketing software to online management of outdoor spaces, such as campgrounds and marinas. Not just a service for companies, ACTIVE’s mobile apps include such well-known health and wellness apps such as Couch to 5K, Recreation.gov, and One Marathon. According to their website, ACTIVE Network “annually processes 100 million registrations and more than $3B in payments for over 47,000 organizers and 200,000 activities and events worldwide”.

AT&T 

Few info tech companies have been as crucial to the formation of the Silicon Prairie as AT&T, the multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Dallas. A rich history, the company’s name dates back to the Bell Telephone Company, founded just after Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone, and its subsidiary, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Currently the third-largest company in Texas (and largest non-oil company), AT&T is the 18th-largest mobile telecom operator in the world as of 2016, with more than 128.6 million mobile customers. Last year, AT&T brought in a net income of $13.3 billion, employing 243,620 employees.

OrgSync 

Founded in Austin in 2007 by students from the University of Texas at Austin, OrgSync provides community management systems for institutes of higher education. The program allows schools to more easily communicate between the administration, students and staff, and manage campus activities and organizations. Within just two years of its founding, OrgSync had formed partnerships with more than 100 colleges and universities, and in 2010 moved its headquarters from Austin to Dallas. Today, the program boasts more than 450 campus partners, 100,000 organizations, and over 5 million users.

Match.com 

In the online age, some of the most competitive info tech services are those that can bring people together. Headquartered in Dallas, Match.com is one of today’s leading online dating websites, with web sites for twenty-four countries in fifteen different languages. While Dallas is the company’s center, their offices are located around the world with locations in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing. Founded in 1995, Match.com is today owned by IAC, a media and internet company with over 150 brands in 100 countries.

Other Silicon Prairie Info Tech Companies:

Hotels.com: A website for easy booking of hotels and other types of lodging around the globe. The site currently lists more than 325,000 available for booking in 19,000 locations.

CompuCom: Providing “IT solutions for a digitial workspace, CompuCom offers on-site and remote support to more than 1,900 U.S. stores, 33 distribution centers and 80 district offices.

Dealertrack Technologies: A provider of digital solutions for the automotive retail industry, Dealertrack works alongside dealers, manufacturers, lenders and state agencies. The company is well-known for its Digital Retailing tools and lender network, the largest in North America.

HP Enterprise Services: (Electronic Data Systems): Headquartered in Plano, twenty miles northeast of downtown Dallas, the company now known as HP Enterprise Services was founded by Ross Perot in 1962, and today produces $34.9 billion in revenue.

NQ Mobile: Founded in Beijing before expanding to its current Dallas home, NQMobile is a center for the development, licensing, support and sale of software, primarily for mobile technology, including games, search and security.

SoftLayer Technologies, Inc: Recently acquired by IBM, SoftLayer provides managed hosting and cloud-based computing. Prior to the acquisition, SoftLayer held the distinction of largest privately held cloud infrastructure provider in the world.