Latisys, a colocation and managed services provider, is back on the acquisition track, purchasing a Washington, D.C. area firm that provides a similar set of services. Here are the details.

Launching in June 2007, Latisys has previously purchased companies in Irvine, Calif., Denver, and Oakbrook, Ill. The latest acquisition is Pryme Technologies in Ashburn, Va. Latisys says it will convert Pryme’s business into a 123,000 square foot data center campus.

Latisys did business in the government sector prior to the Pryme acquisition. It didn’t inherit any government customers from that purchase, however.

A spokesman for Latisys said the company anticipates the suburban Washington facility will be able to address federal government requirements. He said the newly acquired square footage provides the space to meet current demands and future needs; the company expects significant growth in the D.C. market.

Latisys isn’t alone in that respect. A number of companies are expanding data centers and service offerings in the capital region. In 2009, Carpathia Hosting debuted a line of managed hosting solutions for federal agencies and rolled out a business unit of government customers.

The federal interest in cloud computing is one factor attracting managed hosting firms and companies with cloud offerings — Microsoft and Google among them.

Federal systems integrators, meanwhile, also offer managed services — as is the case with CGI and CSC.

While that seems like quite a roster of companies, the government often establishes  multiple-award contract vehicles. Such programs let a number of contractors compete for task orders, which are essentially mini-competitions within the framework of the contract vehicle. While a share of a multiple-award deal is no guarantee of big bucks, it’s at least a foot in the door.

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