Sailors Love NMCI; Marines Not So Much

Sailors just love the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, according to the latest quarterly survey conducted by the Navy Department and contract-holder EDS, although overall Marine satisfaction dipped 2 percentage points in the quarter ended March 31.

EDS, owned by Hewlett-Packard, said in an internal brief that for the first time since it won the NMCI contract in October 2000, overall satisfaction with NMCI in the Navy topped 90 percent, up from 89.7 percent in the quarter ended December 2008.

That means extra cash for EDS, which said in the internal brief that it will receive an incentive payment of $25 for each "seat" (or computer) that serves one or more users that has a 90 percent satisfaction rating in the quarter. EDS will receive an incentive payment of $12.50 for each seat that achieved an 85 percent satisfaction rating in the quarter.

EDS did not break out the number of seats that achieved a satisfaction level of 85 or 90 percent. But the company said in its internal brief that if all 340,000 NMCI seats that serve about 600,000 Navy and Marine users hit a satisfaction level of 90 percent for all of 2009, it would bring in an extra $34 million. If it hit 85 percent, EDS would receive $17 million.

Marine satisfaction with NMCI dropped 2 points in the last quarter to 80.6 percent from 82.6 percent last December. That was down 4.4 points from an 85 percent satisfaction rate in September 2008.

EDS said the decline in the last quarter was due to tighter cybersecurity controls, including a requirement to log on to the system with a secure identification chip contained in the Defense Department's Common Access Card. The procedure eliminates the need for a username and password, which was previously required, and if sailors or Marines try to use the old username-password log in, they will be locked out after three tries.

Contributing to the Marines' dissatisfaction was a reduction in the number of authorized Web sites that users can access through NMCI and a ban on thumb drives. Saturation of an NMCI circuit at Camp Lejune, N.C., degraded NMCI's performance at the Marine base and at other Marine units in the Southeast. The circuits have been upgraded, EDS said in its internal brief.

Navy and Marine NMCI users continue to express displeasure with the performance of the Microsoft Outlook e-mail client, which received the "most frequent, negative comments," the survey reported. Users complained that NMCI e-mail "is very slow, it frequently locks up, it takes too long to open attachments and the mailbox sizes are too small." EDS plans to increase the size of the NMCI mailbox by September.

The NMCI help desk, which EDS operates, received the most kudos in the survey, with users praising the professionalism of the helpers, along with their courtesy and responsiveness.

EDS and the Navy sent the last quarterly survey to 142,823 NMCI users and had a response rate of 11.5 percent, or 16,393 surveys returned, with most of them happy campers.

I imagine I'll soon hear from disgruntled NMCI users.