Founded in 1987, Infostrat is the most experienced Microsoft Gold Partner in Washington, D.C. with Gold certifications in these eight competency solutions areas:
Ancient History
Infostrat was founded in January 1987 by James J.Townsend. He worked alone, in the basement of a Dupont Circle townhouse, in a corner of his bedroom. His workstation was an IBM PC XT with 640K memory, a 20 megabyte hard drive, a Magnavox CGA monitor, and Okidata dot matrix printer.
Its first client was the Washington, DC office of Fiat. The project was to build a database that correlated the Fiat product line with the U.S. Department of Defense procurement offices that purchase these items. The database was developed on a VAX 11/750 running Ingres. Later we developed PC databases for Fiat to track World Bank projects.
Our second client was the Smithsonian Institution Office of Exhibits Central (OEC). The project was an exhibit tracking database for travelling shows. The database catalogued all the items in a show and how each item was crated and shipped. It was written in DataEase and ran on a Novell network with IBM AT computers with monochrome monitors. Jim’s partner on this project was Chris Guziak, a database developer who later ended up at Microsoft. He is now a realtor in the Los Angeles area.
For the first three years of operation, we worked with various databases including Ingres, R:Base, dBASE, and ultimately DataEase. We also did VAX installation and configuration, teamed with world renowned networking expert Joel Snyder (www.opusone.com).
Jim hired a graphic designer, Joanne Zamore, to design our corporate identity. She came up with our logo of the gradient square and stylized I and S, winning a design award for her work. We bought the finest letterhead (Crane’s Crest cotton) to run through that dot-matrix printer. This is when we upgraded to an HP Series II laser printer.
The office was moved half a block, to 1918 18th Street, sharing space with a graphic design firm. At this point, Jim hired an intern from Georgetown University on the suggestion of Georgetown business school professor William McHenry. This proved to be the source of many outstanding Infostrat employees for years to come.
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Infostrat joined the Microsoft Solution Provider program in 1994. We moved uptown to 4301 Connecticut Avenue, NW at the Van Ness metro stop, where we have been located since.
In 1997, Infostrat was promoted from member level to the partner level of the Microsoft Solution Provider program by the Mid-Atlantic district. The size of our average project increased, and our focus expanded to include advanced web design. We published our first truly collaborative book, Web Development with Microsoft Resources, co-authored by six Infostrat consultants.
We expanded our capabilities further in 1998, hiring our first marketing executive. Aimee Sprung developed our marketing and branding and has subsequently moved to a marketing position with Microsoft based in Boston. The Microsoft Federal District promoted us to Partner level Solution Provider in February 1998. A host of new government contracts followed soon after, and pushed our growth to record levels.
Infostrat was named Microsoft Federal Systems 1999 Partner of the Year. We have won additional recognition from clients and partners, including certificates of commendation from the United States Marine Corps in 2004 and awards from Microsoft Mid-Atlantic and Microsoft Federal in 2005.
In 2005, Infostrat joined the Microsoft Business Solutions Partner Program and at the same time became a Small Business Specialist. As of 2008, we have earned eight Microsoft competencies and over 100 certifications.
See our Web Site Archive for more history.