Zerowait has been in business for over 20 years, and in that time we have worked with many Federal, State, County and City government IT departments. Since 2001, the growth in Government Storage requirements has been accelerating, and as this equipment gets older our NetApp government customers have asked us to provide support for more and bigger installations. Interest in SimplStor by this sector has also blossomed. While many of these customers are able to purchase from us under simplified acquisition procedures, often we are asked if we have a Schedule 70 Contract or a vehicle to make things easier on the procurement folks. We knew that for this task we would need an expert, and we found one: Tim Reid, now Zerowait’s Director of Government Contracts.
Tim is a veteran, serving in the US Navy until 1992. Afterward he began a career helping businesses obtain Government contracts. Over the last decade Tim has helped small businesses win almost $150 million in Government contracts, and he appreciated how Zerowait specifically could help the government support their legacy storage equipment and migrate to newer platforms like our SimplStor. As a taxpayer, Tim further understood the value we could provide; and, as a specialist in government business development, he recognized the unique value Zerowait could provide in cutting their IT procurement costs.
With Tim’s guidance, Zerowait now has a U.S. Federal General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70 contract application in process, which when awarded will allow Zerowait to provide specialized goods and services to a broader segment of the governmental IT sector. As Tim says, “We are looking forward to being able to answer ‘Yes’ when agency IT managers ask if we (Zerowait) have a GSA Schedule. Being awarded the contract, and having earned the right to be a GSA schedule contractor, will make all the work getting to this point worth it.” Over the last several months Tim has added to our capabilities and modified our processes to meet the stringent requirements of government contracting.
After two decades in business Zerowait now has a dedicated government contracts department and we are building a team of specialists to help agencies and organizations that need to maintain, expand, or migrate their data storage infrastructure while staying within strict budgetary constraints. Zerowait can now offer service and support for legacy NetApp equipment and our SimplStor systems which can run Redhat, Solaris with ZFS or Microsoft Storage Server R2, providing government IT departments the same flexible and affordable systems and support that Zerowait offers our commercial customers.
