Seven thousand computers sound like a shopping decision. For a school district, they are also a storage decision, a staffing decision and a scheduling decision. Somewhere between the order and the classroom, somebody has to make all those machines useful. A cardboard box is remarkably indifferent to a teacher’s lesson plan.
- GTS combines technology purchasing with configuration, installation, support and IT staffing.
- Its customers include schools, governments and healthcare organizations.
- The revealing detail: Pflugerville ISD used GTS’s integration facility to reduce the work and storage burden of a large deployment.
A purchase order is a beginning
Pflugerville Independent School District had done its homework. During 2015, its Technology Advisory Committee held meetings about the purpose of acquiring student devices. In 2016, the district began several technology initiatives intended to improve student engagement and productivity. This was an educational decision before it became a hardware decision.
GTS’s account of the engagement describes configuring and deploying more than 7,000 solutions. The district used the company’s integration facility to save warehouse space, budget and staff resources. GTS also supplied on-site support after hours. Those details tell us more about the business than a catalogue of computer brands ever could.
Consider the sequence. First, decide what students need to do. Then choose equipment. Then prepare it somewhere that can handle the volume. Finally, put it into service on a schedule that respects the people already using the buildings. The district’s calendar belongs in the technical specification.
Pflugerville ISD’s published GTS case study. The work included facility staging and after-hours on-site support.
The computer has to arrive ready
GTS occupies a familiar but easily underestimated place in the technology market: the integrator. It selects and supplies other companies’ hardware and software, then does the connecting work. Its offerings include end-user computers, datacenter systems, software, physical security and audiovisual installations. Customers can also buy the people needed to implement or maintain them.
The company’s end-user computing service runs from procurement through deployment and maintenance. Its professional services include structured cabling, staging and delivery. These are the jobs that turn a collection of compatible products into something an institution can actually operate.
There is a pleasingly unfashionable precision to GTS’s 2018 quality-management announcement. The work covered by its ISO 9001:2015 certification included imaging, configuration, asset tagging, tracking, rack-and-stack work and deployment. A technology purchase has a physical life: it must be labelled, placed, connected and accounted for. GTS has built services around that life.
Manufacturers remain essential. GTS lists partners including Dell Technologies, Apple, Microsoft, AWS and HPE. Its advantage is the ability to assemble technology and services around an institution’s requirements. Buyers should judge that combination through the proposed work, the handover and the support commitment.
The camera keeps filming. The storage does not keep growing.
School security offers another view of the same problem. At Liberty Hill ISD, GTS describes a year-long project replacing 740 video cameras, adding cable drops and installing equipment across multiple buildings. The company reports minimal downtime. That is an installation story with a school attached, which makes the timing part of the job.
Deer Park ISD’s difficulty was further downstream. Its video-management system used storage for footage and file sharing. That appliance was nearly full and approaching the end of support. The district also worried about losing data while moving to replacement hardware. Capacity and support were becoming constraints before a reported failure.
GTS’s architects met with the district’s IT team, walked through the environment and used whiteboard sessions to plan implementation and migration. The resulting design combined an on-premises storage appliance with AWS backup and archiving. It retained a local system while adding a cloud role.
New hardware: 2 PB total. AWS adds backup and archiving. Bars show approximate scale; available and usable capacity are different measures.
The useful decision here was how to divide the work between local storage and cloud services. A buyer copying this approach would begin with retention needs, growth, recovery priorities and a migration plan. The amount of data on the old machine is only one question. How safely it reaches the new arrangement is another.
Three ways to buy the missing capacity
Institutions have different shortages. Some need a finite project completed. Others need someone to keep answering support requests. Others need another person on the team. GTS offers professional services, managed services and staffing to address those different demands.
Design, configure, cable, install and deploy.
Help desk, desktop support and lifecycle services.
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct-hire staffing.
GTS’s government case studies describe a seven-year City of Dallas engagement that included round-the-clock service-desk support, on-site desktop support, configuration management and end-user imaging and deployment. Its managed-services portfolio also includes software management, hardware lifecycle services, business continuity and critical incident response.
At the City of Burleson, the company’s work involved VxRail infrastructure, installation, configuration, data migration, virtualization and monitoring. It is a different assignment from staffing a help desk, although both belong to the same institutional problem: getting enough technical capacity to keep services working.
Staffing supplies capacity in a more literal form. GTS recruits across technical support, networking, development, databases, security and leadership. Its contract-to-hire arrangement typically places a consultant under a GTS contract for three to six months before possible employment by the customer. The arrangement gives the institution time to work with the person before making a permanent decision.
The price depends on the promise
The business model follows those choices. GTS sells hardware and software, charges for project work, advertises managed services with predictable monthly fees and supplies recruitment and contract staffing. An institution can buy an item, an implementation, ongoing coverage or some combination of them.
Actual public orders make the range tangible. The Texas Real Estate Commission’s fiscal 2024 purchasing list, covering September through December 2023, records a GTS tracking-camera order at $2,240.17. A separate order described as “Gov Delivery” is listed at $44,511.26. These are amounts for specific orders with their own contract terms, not price tags for the school deployments.
Procurement is part of the offering. Texas DIR lists GTS as a prime vendor for several categories, including managed services, cybersecurity software and education IT. It also lists reseller relationships. Eligible public entities can use the relevant cooperative contracts, subject to their scope and rules.
For a buyer, the comparison should include internal work as well as the invoice. Buying directly from a manufacturer leaves the institution to arrange integration and support. Another reseller may offer its own service bundle. GTS’s case for consideration rests on the work it can take on and its experience with public institutions.
The owners answer the phone
In 2024, GTS became fully employee-owned, according to the company. That changes the relationship between the business and the people performing its work. Tracie Simental describes the feeling plainly:
“Being an employee owner gives me a feeling of pride in what we do and who we are as a company.”Tracie Simental / GTS employee-owner
Ownership is a reason to look closely at continuity and accountability. It does not replace a clear service agreement. A school still needs named responsibilities, escalation routes and a plan for the days when something goes wrong. An ownership story becomes useful to a customer when it appears in the handling of those details.
The company also makes service literal outside its contracts. A committee established in January 2017 chooses organizations to support with time, money and hands-on work. The Give Through Service Foundation followed in 2018. Listed organizations include Meals on Wheels Central Texas, Caritas of Austin and the Central Texas SPCA. The motto has an administrative apparatus behind it.
Write Monday into the specification
The lesson from GTS’s public projects is wonderfully portable. Ask where the equipment will be prepared. Assign responsibility for migration. Include the working calendar. Decide who supports users after delivery. Compare the cost of the complete assignment, including the effort your own staff will retain.
This kind of integration is most useful when volume, multiple sites, specialist work or limited internal staff make coordination difficult. For a small purchase that an existing team can configure and support comfortably, the extra service layer may offer less value. Hybrid storage also requires a budget and operating plan for its continuing cloud use.
Pflugerville’s computers were purchased to help students learn. Everything between the advisory committee and the classroom had to serve that purpose. GTS’s business lives in that interval: the place where the boxes stop being inventory and start being somebody’s working day.