SOSi CEO says company's engineers are already meeting with AppTek engineers

SOS International's investment in AppTek -- unveiled last week – is already resulting in collaboration, according to SOSi's chief executive.

In an interview with Inside Defense this week, Julian Setian said there are "immediate applications" of AppTek's technology within SOSi's work.

SOSi last week announced the deal, which allows for it to become the exclusive reseller of AppTek products to federal, state and local government.

Two days after the announcement, Setian said, engineers from both companies spent four hours discussing sales channels.

"We have a very short orientation period," he said. "We already kind of know each other's capabilities."

Setian acknowledged that there isn't necessarily a standing requirement for the technology, but said SOSi will be working with its government customers to help them understand the benefits.

"What we're hoping to do is drive the market by putting next-generation technologies in front of our customers," he said.

"It's really hard to get the government to adopt emerging technologies from the outside," he added. "Government agencies have to come to their own conclusions and start to build requirements into their" requests for proposals.

Mudar Yaghi, AppTek's CEO, told Inside Defense SOSi has existing relationships with government agencies and can act as something of a technology consultant to them.

Setian said the investment is a natural fit, given SOSi's roots in providing foreign language services. This technology, he said, will take that work "to the next level."