DEOS award expected this summer; two-year integration to follow

The Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract – the Pentagon's other major cloud acquisition -- will be soon be awarded with requests for information on voice and video capability sets to follow.

The DEOS award is expected summer, to include an initial task order, with integration and initial testing taking place in the fall, and migration planned from fiscal 2020 through 2022, Kevin Tate, a management analyst for the Defense Department CIO's portfolio lead on enterprise capabilities and productivity services, said during a presentation at the Defense Information Systems Agency's May 13 TechNet Cyber conference with AFCEA in Baltimore.

DEOS, which is being run through GSA Schedule 70, will be a $8 billion-plus blanket purchase agreement for multiple business software tools including email and chat. Following the panel, Tate told FCW that RFIs regarding capability sets two and three -- for business and assured IP voice and video functions -- are expected later this year or by early 2020, pending internal cost analyses.

Business analysis decisions still need to be made, Karl Kurz, DISA’s chief engineer for the unified capabilities portfolio, told FCW, as old analog infrastructure lingers. Kurz also said during the joint presentation that some of the distinctions between DEOS and the other two capability sets led to a “logical breakdown” across the commercial space.

Both Kurz and Tate indicated that DOD and DISA are taking their time in evaluating the technical and financial costs of solutions for IP voice and video. However, like DEOS, moving to a reliable capability from aging legacy systems is urgent.

As Kurz said, “It doesn’t matter how much money you save, if someone calls 911 and the call doesn’t go through -- you’ve failed.”