EDS changes NMCI leadership

EDS' leadership of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet project has experienced something close to a changing of the guard.

Rick Rosenburg, EDS front man for the NMCI effort, has been promoted to lead the development and implementation of similar, enterprisewide efforts for other government clients. He will be succeeded by Bill Richard, a 22-year EDS veteran and formerly enterprise client executive for EDS' business with Continental Airlines Inc.

Rosenburg has been EDS' NMCI program executive since December 1999.

"It was time," said Rosenburg, adding that he has been pleased with the Navy and EDS' accomplishments since the NMCI contract was awarded in October 2000. "This has been a very challenging position."

NMCI is the Navy's $6.9 billion initiative to create a single, enterprisewide network across more than 400,000 seats in its shore-based facilities.

In May, the project passed its first significant hurdle since the contract was awarded when Pentagon officials gave their approval to roll out 100,000 more seats. In addition, EDS also recently completed construction of the third of four network operations centers, this one located in Hawaii. The other centers are in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego.

The Navy earlier this year named Rear Adm. Charles Munns as NMCI director. He leads the program for the Navy.

The initial stages of the contract consisted mostly of creating the infrastructure that would allow the EDS to begin rolling out seats using that network.

"The program is rolling," Rosenburg said, and the network has been functioning as planned. The company rolled out 1,500 seats last week -- including 500 seats in one day, he said.

EDS has been under pressure to roll out seats more quickly because that determines how much the company gets paid.

Rosenburg acknowledged that the legacy application issue has been an enormous problem for NMCI. The Navy and EDS have been working on a way to deal with nearly 100,000 applications, many of which are old versions, nonstandard or software that does not meet the Defense Department's security requirements and therefore cannot be moved onto the new NMCI network.

Understanding the state of an origination's existing infrastructure is one of the key lessons learned from NMCI, Rosenburg said.