Amazon explores partnership with Apptis on federal cloud |
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Amazon explores partnership with Apptis on federal cloud
Amazon.com is clearly interested in finding government customers for its cloud computing services. The ecommerce giant has been quietly building an operation in the Washington, D.C. area and Amazon Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels is making a big sales pitch to federal agencies. Now we're hearing that Amazon is exploring a partnership with Apptis -- a Virginia-based government IT services company -- to provide the federal government with a variety of cloud services.
Amazon and Apptis together responded to an RFQ (request for quotes) put out by the U.S. General Services Administration, Apptis spokeswoman Piper Conrad said. Conrad said the two companies are also "finalizing a general partnership." She gave no further details, and said Apptis executives would not be able to comment.
The General Services Administration (GSA) put out an RFQ seeking "Infrastructure-as-a-Service" offerings, including cloud storage, virtual machines, and cloud web hosting. The deadline for submissions was Sept. 16.
Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Michael Hargrove, a contracting officer with GSA, declined to comment on whether Amazon and a partner submitted a response to the RFQ.
The Obama administration has been pushing cloud computing as a cost-effective strategy for federal agencies -- allowing them to tap third-party data storage and computing power via the internet, rather than pay for traditional IT infrastructure. U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra recently unveiled a new website, apps.gov, for federal agencies to shop for cloud-based IT services.
Teaming with Chantilly, Va.-based Apptis, which has a track record of working with the government, makes sense for Amazon, which despite its broad name recognition doesn't have much experience working with federal agencies.
Amazon has been seeking bigger customers for its cloud-computing business. Amazon's cloud has gotten traction with startups and some larger companies, but Amazon is targeting more Fortune 500 firms and federal agencies -- and their large IT budgets.
Amazon faces a range of potential competitors for federal cloud business. Google, Salesforce.com, IBM and a host of other companies are interested in providing the government with such services.
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