Dig Deeper Texas

The economic gurus who lured Microsoft’s data center here justified giving away over $20 million dollars in tax breaks and incentives on the basis of raising the city’s stature as a place to build data centers. (Because we’ll pay you to come here?) So even though Microsoft is only going to provide 75 jobs, maybe 100, we’re investing on the future returns of the Microsoft name.

That has got me thinking, what should that return be? How will we measure it? And then it dawned on me. Rackspace is getting about the same amount in economic incentives (probably less) to move to Windsor Park Mall and it’s promising 3000 jobs in five years. Therefore, the Microsoft name should be worth about 3000 new jobs as well, shouldn’t it be?

Now I don’t know a lot about data centers but lets assume that the average data center employs 100 people. That would mean that 30 more data centers would need to relocate to San Antonio for us to get the expected return on investment on the Microsoft name.

Also, given that San Antonio was already attracting some data centers here, they can’t all be attributed to the Microsoft name. We’ll need some sort of percentage. How about we’ll give 75% of the new data centers to Microsoft’s credit? Let’s see, so that would mean we would actually need 40 data centers to move to San Antonio. In five years.

Oh, and one other thing, none of the new data centers can receive any local economic incentives otherwise that undermines the value of the Microsoft name.

So which do you think will end up bringing the most jobs to San Antonio, Microsoft or Rackspace? Vote in our poll on the right.

Technorati Tags: Rackspace, Windsor Park Mall, economic development, Microsoft, data center, Texas Enterprise Fund

Filed under: Economic development, Microsoft, Rackspace, Texas enterprise fund, Windsor Park Mall, data center