ATM ATTACK. I'm picking up reports of yet another DISA vs. The World turf battle, this one over the agency's desire to install its own ATM switches on Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine bases and stations. This seems a bit redundant because all the services have longrange projects the Army's CUITN
ATM ATTACK. I'm picking up reports of yet another DISA vs. The World turf battle, this one over the agency's desire to install its own ATM switches on Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine bases and stations. This seems a bit redundant because all the services have long-range projects— the Army's CUITN and Circuit Bundling Initiative, the Air Force's CITS and the Navy's Virtual Intranet— to do the same thing by the turn of the century.
But because the issue here is control, not cost or efficiency, redundancy does not seem to matter. This particular turf battle may get so ugly that DISA may have to start issuing small arms to Army Col. Robert Weber and the rest of his DISN program management team.
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ATM WARS. I've picked up strong signals that Capt. Charles Munns and the N6 shop at CINCPACFLT have just about finished up testing and evaluating products for the new local-area network that will provide ATM-to-the-desktop service for Adm. Archie Clemins' headquarters. The usual crowd is bidding, including Fore Systems, Cabletron and Cisco, and although the dollar value of this contract is small, it has a lot of significance because it will provide service to the major proponents of the Navy's IT-21 project. Look for a lot of whining by the losers on this one.
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MANAGING WITHOUT MAISRC. DepSecDef John Hamre issued a memo late last month saying acquisition reform has eliminated the need for the Pentagon to maintain its Major Automated Information Systems Review Council. This should be good news for taxpayers, who have had to foot the bill for some less-than-successful MAISRC-approved programs, such as the Army's Reserve Component Automation System and the Sustaining Base Information Services. Art Money, the DOD senior civilian official in charge of widgets and IT, said the MAISRC will be replaced by an IT Overarching Integrated Product Team, which will "transition from focusing on reviews of individual acquisitions or systems'' and instead delegate "more acquisition authority to DOD components to [look] horizontally across 'portfolios' of IT investments.'' Follow all this? If so, could someone please enlighten me as to exactly what "Overarching'' means in this context?
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PC TROUBLES. I'm picking up ominous rumbles about the future prospects of a small but key player in the DOD PC market— a player that has seen BPAs steal the business from its IDIQ contracts, which are now not worth the B&P costs, not to mention the legal fees.
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BILL'S TEMPO. I've picked up medium-strength hints that the secure circuits on the Tempo contract, the DOD Washington WAN managed by Bell Atlantic, will be used to carry the live video of President's Clinton's one-way grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky matter next week. No one at the White House, the Justice Department or Bell Atlantic responded to our questions on how this highly sensitive testimony would make its way from the White House to the U.S. Court complex, but all did agree that it would not be carried by microwaves susceptible to interception.
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PLETHORA OF PCS. The Army late last month released the draft RFP for its next major PC acquisition: Personal Computer-3. The contract, open to all DOD and civilian agencies, will offer peripherals, software and services in addition to Pcs.
The Army expects to award two contracts similar to the predecessor PC-2 pact. PC-2 incumbents include BTG Inc. and Sysorex— now Vanstar Corp. Expect the final RFP in the first week of September.
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