Industry watch

CSC WLMP site

U.S. West Lands Telecom Deal

U.S. West, a Denver-based telecommunications company, has snagged its

first major contract from the federal government — a $60 million deal that

it will split with Winstar Communications Inc.

Under the arrangement, the companies will provide federal agencies and

offices in the Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., area with a range of communications

services, including voice phone.

The contract marks Winstar's seventh Metropolitan Area Acquisition award

from the General Services Administration. The goal of the GSA program is

to keep down federal phone costs by permitting regional companies to compete

for local business.

Company "Leapfrogs' onto GSA Schedule

Crucial Technology, a factory-direct seller of memory upgrade modules,

last week announced an agreement with Leapfrog Smart Products Inc. that

puts Crucial's memory products on the General Services Administration schedule

via Leapfrog's approved listing.

Leapfrog, a smart card software developer, will act as the principal

supplier to government agencies and Crucial will supply products under a

pass-through agreement, said Dale Grogan, president of Maitland, Fla.-based

Leapfrog.

Crucial Technology, based in Meridian, Idaho, is a division of Micron

Semiconductor Products Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Micron

Technology Inc.

Army Seeks Logistics Solution

The Army and Computer Sciences Corp. last week were expected to issue

a request for solution, calling on vendors of enterprise resource planning

tools to provide the product on which the $681 million Wholesale Logistics

Modernization Program will be based.

The Army plans to use the WLMP contract to re-engineer the more than

25-year-old systems and processes in its logistics operations. The requests

for solution will go out to ERP vendors SAP America Inc., PeopleSoft Federal

and Oracle Government.

The ERP system will provide the supply chain and financials software,

but the Army is also committed to adopting the commercial best practices

inherent in the system instead of adapting the system to the current Army

processes, said Jeff Plotnik, CSC vice president for Department of Defense

supply chain solutions and WLMP program manager.

—Dan Caterinicchia, Diane Frank and Bryant Jordan contributed to this report.