Carahsoft Targets Govt.

Focused squarely on the government sector, Carahsoft's business model of providing solutions and services aims to deliver best-of-breed hardware, software and support systems to its customer base. Targeting federal, state and local government agencies has proven lucrative for Carahsoft: The company, No. 242 on the VARBusiness 500, posted revenue of $91.1 million in 2006, up 150.3 percent from $36.4 million in 2005. It's a challenging market; agility is the key to successfully wading through red tape and, often, scaling mountains of bureaucracy. Carahsoft's persistence has paid off. Here, Craig P. Abod, president at Carahsoft Technology, discusses the demands of the government customer as well as trends in that marketplace.

VARBusiness: What are some of the challenges of being in the government sector?

Abod: We face many unique challenges. With billions of dollars in government IT spending up for grabs each year, the competition is more than intense. In many cases, it is mandated by law. Understanding the federal and state/local procurement processes, securing the requisite contract vehicles and security clearances required to land business and marketing effectively to the government further complicate operating in this overcrowded sector. Combine those challenges with long sales and payment cycles and sometimes arduous government terms and conditions, and it's easy to see why many companies find doing business with the public sector daunting.

At Carahsoft, we've overcome these challenges by making a significant, long-term investment in our dedicated, government-focused sales divisions. In addition to aggressive, proactive sales and marketing activities, we've also developed a unique partnering model that benefits both the technology vendor and the government.

VB: What are some of your public-sector customers' needs and what technologies do you see becoming popular during the next six to 12 months?

Abod: We're anticipating an increasing demand for virtualization, open source and collaboration technologies. Virtualization will continue to be a very popular, cost-effective option for agencies addressing teleworking, COOP, disaster-recovery and IT consolidation initiatives. The demand among federal agencies for open-source solutions, including Linux operating systems and infrastructure software, continues to accelerate sharply. We anticipate the largest growth in demand for collaboration and messaging solutions.

VB: Is the public sector slower to adopt new technologies? What is the adoption process like?

Abod: In many cases, public-sector agencies are faster to adopt new technologies because they have unique, mission-critical needs. We represent many new and emerging technology companies whose cutting-edge solutions are being embraced by our public-sector customers, particularly in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.

VB: What are your thoughts on renewal of legacy applications. Is this a big concern in the government sector?

Abod: Problems with legacy systems are often overplayed. Certainly, the government has legacy applications that require support, but they are also moving to new technologies that help them drive costs out while increasing the flexibility of their IT infrastructure and leveraging existing data and assets.

VB: What security services does Carahsoft offer?

Abod: Carahsoft teams with many of Symantec's reseller partners. In this way, these partners are able to offer a full range of security services. Specifically, this includes continuity of operations and disaster recovery, enterprise messaging management, IT/endpoint compliance, regulatory compliance, data-center security and defense in depth.