You won’t find some of the biggest names in technology on Washington Technology’s Top 100 list of federal contractors. Rather than working directly with government customers, technology powerhouses such as Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. depend on partnerships with systems integrators for entry into the federal market.

Systems integrators are an integral part of Microsoft’s business strategy, said Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft Federal.

“One of the things we’ve been focused on and continue to invest in is building a deeper relationship with systems integrators.”

The relationship between contractors and information technology companies is more critical than ever as government projects become more complex, industry experts say. Mandates, such as using open-source or commercial solutions, also create a climate in which technology companies and systems integrators need each other to be successful.

Understanding that partnerships are not necessarily competitive is an important step in building relationships between integrators and companies selling products, said Bill Vass, president of Sun Microsystems Federal Inc.

“Systems integrators are really becoming aware that we don’t compete with them — we’re a partner,” he said.

Some of Sun’s competitors compete in the services space, but Sun does not go after systems integration work, he said. Sun relies on systems integrators for access to federal customers because the company generally doesn’t sell to them directly, he added.

DEMAND FOR OPEN SOURCE
The increased demand from government customers for open-source solutions is helping encourage those partnerships, Vass said.

Federal contractors are looking for vendors to deliver enterprise-class, scalable, opensource products, he said.

Factors underlying that demand include the cost and security profile of open source, he said. “Getting open source for free is still a selling point for a lot of customers because they can start on a project right away rather than waiting for contracts to be negotiated for support,” Vass said.

Sun’s production software — not just developer or demo versions — is available for free and can be downloaded immediately. Acquisition costs for open source are lower because projects often start with development and tests, which require licensing negotiations for proprietary software.

With open source, an agency doesn’t go through the support contract negotiations until they’re ready to go to production.

“You’re not paying your systems integrator to sit around and wait until you can get access to the real production code,” Vass said. “You can pull it down and work on it right away.”

Federal customers, especially in the defense and intelligence markets, are embracing open source because of its security benefits, Vass said. Those customers want to know exactly what is in the code so they can protect against any possible attacks. Sun’s work with Northrop Grumman Corp. on the Army Knowledge Online Web portal is an example of the use of open source in the federal government.

“It is an open-source mail product, an open-source calendar product, and they use an open-source database,” Vass said.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
At Microsoft, the relationship with integrators is so important that the company has had a program devoted solely to that area for the past three years.

“We have invested in building out teams that specifically, directly support Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE [Systems], Raytheon and General Dynamics,” Kolcun said. “We support their internal use of Microsoft technology as well as working with them in partnership to capture new revenue opportunities with government customers across the public sector.”

Microsoft invests billions in research and development, and the intellectual property gained from that effort fits in well with the work of federal contractors, Kolcun said. Systems integrators can use that intellectual property to develop government-specific applications.

“We’ve engaged with integrators to varying degrees relative to intellectual property sharing on the development of new commercial technology like our simulation product called Microsoft ESP,” he added.

Contractors like working with a commercial product, and Microsoft benefits by having those products tailored to the requirements of government customers.

“For our simulation product, Northrop Grumman is looking at how they can integrate that into joint mission-planning systems,” Kolcun said.

Microsoft Federal is interested in developing similar relationship with contractors for other pieces of technology.

A new focus on developing solutions rather than stand-alone products is another trend in the contractor/technology company relationship, said Dawn Duross, director of Cisco’s Federal Channels group.

“The nature of our business at Cisco has really changed over the last few years,” Duross said. “In the past, companies would come to us, and we would give them a quote on a router or a switch. Today, as the network has gained importance as a platform, our role has changed in how we work with large systems integrators.”

Cisco has made investments to deliver a more cohesive solution to address government agency needs. Cisco’s engineers, for example, worked with engineers at General Dynamics on improving that company’s Itronix Corp.’s GoBook rugged laptop computer, Duross said.

“We ported our Cisco unified communications manager software onto the GoBook,” she said. “It will be able to be used by programs like the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical.”

Cisco has similar partnerships with other integrators on federal projects and continues to look for more opportunities.

Vass recommends that integrators who want to work with Sun go to the Sun Federal Web site. The site lists programs the company is interested in capturing and where it needs partners.

“They can click on our solutions tab and see the portfolio of solutions we have,” Vass said. “If they have any expertise in any of those solutions and they’d like to team with us to deliver those solutions, we’re always ready to talk to them.”

Doug Beizer (dbeizer@1105govinfo.com) is a staff writer at Washington Technology.