Navy CIO envisions Defensewide software buys
By
Bob Brewin
The Navy and Marine Corps are primed to save money through an enterprisewide purchase of licenses for Microsoft software, but Navy Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen told a media briefing Tuesday that he envisions a day when the entire Defense Department negotiates a single license for Microsoft software to cut costs further.
This approach would allow Defense to drive economies of scale as one of the largest enterprises in the world using Microsoft operating systems and application software, Halvorsen said. Defense's workforce comprises 1.4 million active-duty personnel, 833,000 reserve and National Guard personnel, and 580,000 civilian employees.
Considering the Navy has more than 60 Microsoft contract vehicles, enterprise licenses will not only drive down purchase prices, but also will reduce the costs of contract administration, Halvorsen said. He suggested the Air Force as a potential manager of a Defensewide acquisition of Microsoft licenses.
The Air Force signed its first servicewide deal for Microsoft licenses in 2004 -- a six-year contract with Dell valued at up to $500 million for 525,000 PCs. The service followed up in June 2010 with a five-year contract with Dell valued at $345.4 million for application and operating system software for 574,000 PCs.
The Navy and Marines could end up using this software differently in the future. Instead of loading the software on thousands of desktops and laptops, Halvorsen plans to push the use of thin clients, network terminals without onboard storage, to access software stored on a server or in a data center.
The Navy also is conducting analysis on acquiring software as a service -- rather than outright purchase -- in a cloud computing environment. While some Navy and Marine applications must run in a secure cloud environment, Halvorsen said he is open to using commercial cloud suppliers for nonsensitive information such as recruiting records.
Both the Navy and Marine Corps have to figure out how to accommodate smartphones and other advanced mobile computers on their systems, Halvorsen said, "but we're not there yet." He suggested that at some point he might allow users to connect their personal smartphones to Navy and Marine networks, an approach that would save money on hardware purchases.