Novell becomes only the third tech vendor to sign aboard
the U.S. Government Services Agency’s (GSA) SmartBuy Program, officials
announced Thursday.
The SmartBuy Program is the government’s effort to concentrate all software
and hardware purchases, which amounts to $60 billion annually, under one
roof and get vendors to provide their wares at bulk-rate prices.
The program has been slow going since its inception back in June 2003. SmartBuy
Program Manager Tom Kireilis attributes this to vendor reluctance to provide bulk
pricing on hardware and software purchases. However, it is picking up steam.
“We want to make this a win-win for the industry as well as government, and
the only way to do that is to decrease the cost of doing business with the
government,” he said. “We’re trying to leverage that, if you will, and put
into place large agreements that are wide-ranging in scope. That makes it
easier to sell to the government and thereby reduces their costs.”
What Novell gets to leverage is the fact that it’s only the third vendor to get
the GSA’s seal of approval. The other two companies don’t compete in the
same software arena; ESRI provides geographic information systems (GIS) and
mapping software, while Manugistics is a supply chain management (SCM)
vendor.
Novell is also the first Linux vendor — with its SuSE Linux offering —
in the program, giving them an enviable advantage with any agency looking
for a cheaper alternative to the Windows operating system, which
has been one of the dominant office application and server software
providers in the space.
It also gives SuSE Linux a fresh start in an area that hasn’t already been
blanketed by Red Hat , a commercial Linux vendor that
owns more than 60 percent of the market share in the Linux server sector.
Other distributors are gaining
ground, however, and naturally Novell wants SuSE on top.
As such, the company created three specialized software bundles of its Linux
product to compete against Microsoft and Red Hat:
a desktop package, a server “starter pack” for departmental networks and
an enterprise-grade Linux offering for large environments.
Also in the offering, on the software side, is a Web services bundle to
transition the government’s many legacy systems. Novell officials said
their secure identity management software will soon test through GSA’s
eAuthentication Interoperability Lab.
“The federal government has always been a strong customer of Novell, and we
hope our participation in SmartBuy will strengthen the relationship even
more,” Alan Kraft, Novell vice president for federal government solutions,
said in a statement. “More importantly, with the new SmartBuy software
bundles we’re offering, federal agencies can address tough IT challenges
around infrastructure, open source, security and data integration with
integrated, yet flexible solutions at an attractive price point.”
