Horizon DCS Plans National Expansion

After filling one Dallas data center and starting on a second, Horizon Data Center Solutions is looking to build a national data center footprint. The company says it is actively seeking data center real estate in Northern Virginia, Houston and California. Horizon is working with Dallas-based broker GVA Cawley to evaluate new sites.

Horizon said today that it has reached capacity in its first data center, a 25,000 square foot facility in a Digital Realty Trust (DLR) building at 4025 Midway in Carollton. It also operates 12,500 square feet of space in a second Digital Realty property in Carrollton at 2440 Marsh Lane.

Targeting the SMB Market
CEO Lance Smith said Horizon has found a strong niche targeting small- to medium-sized projects, including IT infrastructure hosting for SMBs as well as modest projects for larger corporations. The company leases wholesale data center space, acquires managed service providers (it bought Mareechi in April) and uses its expertise to operate the facility and package the services for its clients.

"In between colo and the large IT outsourcers, we find that the market genuinely needs a flexible approach for small to mid-sized customers," said Smith. "The major data center providers in this country focus solely on serving the needs of billion dollar businesses. However, businesses of all sizes require data security and business continuity strategies that protect them from outages or data loss that can shut everything down. Our vision is to fill this gap with an advanced offering at a fair price."     

Shopping for Wholesale Space
Horison's expanding government practice and strong growth has accelerated their expansion plans by several months. The company is discussing wholesale data center space opportunities with the two data center REITs, Digital Realty and DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT), as well as Quality Technology Services, Smith said.

Horizon expects annual revenues for 2009 to top $20 million, and says it continues to add customers in its Dallas Two data center, where it has "several thousand" square feet of colocation space is under contract. New customers include a national home builder, an 800-physician medical practice management company, a multi-state higher education institution and a Department of Defense infrastructure security installation.