Navy awards 5 BPAs

Over the last two weeks the Navy's Atlantic Fleet has awarded blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) to five vendors for PC notebooks desktops and servers that conform to the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century strategy.

Under the new BPAs - open Navywide - BTG Inc. GE Capital Information Technology Solutions Government Technology Services Inc. Micron Electronics Inc. and Westwood Computer Corp. are providing systems that are capable of running tactical and nontactical applications for installation aboard ships or ashore.

The systems available under the BPAs conform with the specifications of IT-21 the Navy's strategy for creating a seamless ship-to-shore architecture based largely on PC platforms and high-bandwidth networks. The systems come with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system and either Office Pro office automation software or Back Office server software.

The Navy expects the BPAs to be worth about $20 million in total but "there is no ceiling " said Dorothy Hennigan director of command control communications and computer resources for the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet.

Most of the desktop and server systems from all five vendors come with Intel Corp.'s 200 MHz Pentium or Pentium Pro processors although GE Capital is offering configurations based on the Pentium II chip.

BTG Inc. Fairfax Va. is offering a lineup of systems from Compaq Computer Corp. GE Capital's BPA includes notebook computers from IBM Corp. and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. as well as desktops from Compaq Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM. Westwood based in Springfield N.J. is offering desktops and servers from HP.