Navy assessing intranet outside U.S.

The Navy is conducting a business case analysis to expand the Navy Marine Corps Intranet to its installations outside the continental United States, a Navy official said last week.

Such an expansion could include as many as 25,000 Navy users and 9,000 Marines, said Scott Randall, program director for naval networks and information assurance at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. Randall spoke last week at the Navy Connecting Technology Fall 2000 conference in San Diego.

The NMCI contract with Electronic Data Systems Corp. features an option to expand, but the Navy would have to iron out an array of host-nation and status-of-forces agreements to make it happen.

In the meantime, the overseas locations will receive the same equipment that EDS is providing under NMCI, which will help reduce training costs, Randall said. The Navy can make such purchases through its Base Level Information Infrastructure funds.

The business case analysis will help the department abide by provisions of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, which established the basis for managing agency IT programs.