Lockheed Martin wins Army portal deal

Army officials have awarded a multimillion-dollar Army Knowledge Online (AKO) Enterprise Services contract to an industry team led by Lockheed Martin. The winning team will administer the service’s Web portal and oversee its knowledge management program.

Army officials characterized the $152.1 million award as a performance-based contract for one year with six option years. Army officials, who had initially estimated the contract’s value at about $600 million, did not explain the price discrepancy in a statement today announcing the contract award.

“Combining the great things that AKO has done in the past with the net-centric future that Army modularity will provide — this is a great opportunity for the Army,” said Kevin Carroll, program executive officer in the service’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS), in the statement.

Officials in PEO-EIS, the Army Contracting Agency and the Army’s Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Commercial Contracting Center oversaw the procurement.

Lockheed Martin’s industry team includes Computer Sciences Corp., Internosis, Roundarch and Science Applications International Corp. The Lockheed Martin combo beat out competitor teams led by CherryRoad Technologies, the current operator of AKO with Northrop Grumman; Booz Allen Hamilton; and a Boeing and EDS combo, according to one industry official.

Under the new contract, Lockheed Martin’s Integrated Systems and Solutions business unit and its partners will provide AKO systems operations and maintenance, network communications, hardware and software integration, and full-time help desk support for the portal’s classified and unclassified networks.

AKO now has 1.7 million subscribers, compared with 61,000 four years ago. Army officials had sought a contractor to manage that growth and update the Web portal as new technologies emerge.