The state Department of General Services’ (DGS) online vendor list of private-sector technology providers just got a little longer, with the addition of a data storage company whose government sales director said the opportunity arrives at a key moment for tech under new Gov. Gavin Newsom.
DGS confirmed to Techwire the state awarded an agreement Dec. 28 adding San Mateo-based in-cloud data warehouse provider Snowflake Computing to its list of software licensing program (SLP) publishers. The agency indicated the application process lasted about a month. In a news release Tuesday, Snowflake announced it had joined the state’s SLP, streamlining the use of its services and reducing cost for state and local government. Its previous clients have included the University of Notre Dame and federal partners.
In an interview with Techwire, Zach Oxman, Snowflake’s sales director for government sector, said the company is already working with a state agency — though he declined to identify it by name — and is “in conversations” with roughly 20 other state agencies and a number of potential University of California and California State University users. DGS said via email that it does not have data “on the extent to which Snowflake is already working with state and local agencies.”
“They’ve loved Snowflake and, as I would call it, like a satellite office, they’ve gone back to their headquarters and espoused the value of what we’re doing, so it’s been a great start,” Oxman said, emphasizing that, like other private companies, Snowflake wasn’t able to ask that it be added to DGS’ list. Per procedure, Oxman said, three state agencies must request that a company be added to the list, to initiate the application process. DGS said its list, stood up in January 1994 and administered through DGS’ procurement division, includes “66 software publishers with 408 contracts with resellers.”
“Extensive software discounts are negotiated with major software publishers that are then passed on to the state, through the SLP contracts established with authorized participating resellers. SLP contracts reduce the need for individual departments to conduct repetitive acquisitions for proprietary software licenses and software upgrades while taking advantage of the large volume discounts offered by the software publishers,” DGS said. The agency characterized Snowflake’s service offering as centering on cloud and software as a service.
Oxman said the company is known for its “disaggregation between storage and compute,” which enables virtually unlimited scaling of access, ramping up during busy times and throttling back in off days with a correspondingly positive effect on the balance sheet. A cloud native, the company also offers clients — whose storage may rest with Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure — the opportunity to “cross-replicate, cloud to cloud,” migrating from one provider to the other with the same pricing and experience.
And he described Gov. Gavin Newsom’s technology focus as "exciting." In the 11 days since his Jan. 7 inauguration, Newsom has appointed Government Operations Secretary Marybel Batjer to helm a strike force for DMV fixes; promoted a new tool, RFI2 or “Request for Innovative Ideas,” that front-loads solution development and collaboration; and challenged DGS and the California Department of Technology to develop a new iterative procurement approach.
“I’m seeing a sea change in the pace of where we’re going to drive innovation and who is going to be involved in that," Oxman said. "It’s putting the power in the hands of the people who can drive technology and who can really modernize the state. It’s a very exciting time, I think, in California to lead from the front and show the rest of the country what we can do if we’re willing to accept a little bit of risk.”
