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Infiniti: Partnerships Are Key to Contract Award

With the award of a seven-year contract with the state for cloud storage and other products and services, Infiniti Consulting Group of Folsom says it’s helping to extend the California Department of Technology’s reach significantly.

With the award of a seven-year contract with the state for cloud storage and other products and services, Infiniti Consulting Group of Folsom says it’s helping to extend the California Department of Technology’s (CDT) reach significantly.

“Infiniti is thrilled and honored to be selected by the state of California as its exclusive provider of AWS cloud storage solutions,” company President Scott Drossos said in a statement. “We’re excited that California government customers can take advantage of the flexibility and agility of this technology.”

Details of the service offerings, rates and other information are available on the CDT website.

In an interview Thursday with Techwire, Drossos noted: “For state government, it means agencies can now easily implement cloud storage strategies that previously were difficult for them. Consequently, they were oriented toward leaning on inflexible, on-premise storage.” He said the state now has more “elasticity and low-cost solutions.”

In a competitive-bid environment, how did Infiniti come out on top?

“The RFP itself was a pretty large and sophisticated RFP, and was probably difficult for most organizations to tackle,” Drossos said, citing Infiniti’s “strong public-sector experience.”

Infiniti has already designated five partner firms — NetApp, Commvault, CloudEndure and CloudBerry Lab — and is also working with Palo Alto Networks. And there’s room for more as the state’s need for storage, backup, archive, disaster recovery and business continuity grows.

And, in a note to peers and competitors, Drossos added that there’s room for other firms that may want to work with Infiniti.

“If there are other prominent storage solution providers who are cloud-centric or have cloud offerings, we have the ability to continue to augment the agreement to add them,” he said.

“Building a complete leading-edge cloud storage solution often requires integration of leading third-party storage products and services,” Drossos said. “Infiniti is highly selective in who the company works with, forming relationships with third-party partners who are deemed Magic Quadrant sector leaders.”

Infiniti’s marketing director, Maria O’Neil, said the firm has been growing in the months since winning the contract and is very busy recruiting.

How big a deal is this contract for Infiniti and for the state?

“This further extends our reach into the state government sector,” Drossos said. “Any government entity in California can take advantage of it. It extends CDT’s reach significantly. We are driving change and innovation in a collaborative way across agencies and departments.”

For Infiniti, the biggest “repeatable takeaway” — what they and other firms can do to replicate their success — is being willing to build strategic partnerships.

Company CEO and founder Scott Sanders said in a recent interview that cultivating partnerships is Drossos’ strong suit.

“Scott D. sets a goal and is very strategic with how he handles things,” Sanders said. “He pulls all the partners and people together.”  

“The key thing is there’s strength in partnering,” Drossos said. “The sum of our collective capabilities is much more impactful. ... It brings greater benefit and impact to the state agencies we’re trying to support and simultaneously allows multiple partners to participate in a successful award. The takeaway is there’s real power in bringing the collective capabilities of best-of-breed organizations together for the benefit of government.”

Dennis Noone is Executive Editor of Industry Insider. He is a career journalist, having worked at small-town newspapers and major metropolitan dailies including USA Today in Washington, D.C.