HP Clinches $2.5B NASA Deal for PCs

Hewlett Packard has nabbed a 10-year NASA megadeal potentially worth $2.5 billion to manage employees' personal computers and peripheral technology, space agency officials announced on Monday.

The job entails providing, securing and servicing most staff computers, agency software, mobile technology services, printers and other supporting infrastructure. Herndon, Va.-based HP Enterprise Services, formerly EDS, will be responsible for outsourcing some of the tasks to other commercial vendors under the contract known as "ACES," for Agency Consolidated End-user Services.

The fixed-price pact covers four base years of work, with two three-year option periods. Program managers will be based at NASA's shared services center in Mississippi.

ACES is part of a larger NASA effort, the IT Infrastructure Integration Program, intended to save money by consolidating procurements and centralizing information technology services. The new HP deal will replace an older long-term contract currently held by Lockheed Martin Corp. called the Outsourced Desktop Initiative (ODIN).

In February, Lockheed, one of the most established NASA business partners, announced the space agency had awarded the company a $230 contract extension for ODIN that ends in Oct. 2011.

The Mississippi facility where ACES will be managed -- operated by NASA, Computer Sciences Corp. and the states of Mississippi and Louisiana -- supports operations at all 10 NASA space centers.