Air Force closer to enterprise buy

Air Force officials continue to consider a departmentwide Microsoft Corp. license, said Lt. Col. Thomas Gaylord, deputy director of the service's Information Technology Commodity Council, during a Feb. 6 telephone interview.

"The Air Force and Microsoft are in very active discussions," Gaylord said. A council official in September said the group discussed consolidating the service's buying power for Microsoft software.

The council recommended the Air Force streamline its Microsoft contracts or plan to do so, Gaylord said. The group in October advised a departmentwide agreement with Microsoft as it finalized the service's new desktop and notebook computer and server strategy, he said.

The Air Force typically issues IT contract procurement vehicles, and its agencies buy from those vehicles. So the service's nine major commands each possess Microsoft licenses, said Air Force chief information officer John Gilligan.

A possible Air Force/Microsoft consolidation contract follows an Army announcement on May 30 for a servicewide Microsoft license through 2009.In 2003, the Army Enterprise Infostructure-Enterprise Software Consolidation contract funded the purchase of 426,000 licenses.