The Navy’s chief information officer, Terry Halvorsen, said this recently he’s confident that the Navy and Marine Corps will oversee a smooth transition to their next generation intranet but anticipates there could be a few glitches along the way.
Halvorsen the said Department of the Navy has been working diligently to identify and resolve potential problems ahead of the envisioned April 2014 transition from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) to the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN).
“I suspect we won’t move at all without a little bit of a hiccup, but I’m hoping that’s all there is and I think we are doing all the right things to make that happen,” Halvorsen told a group of reporters recently.
“We are doing everything we can…“ he added. “I’m comfortable with where we are going.”
The Department of the Navy is expected to award the contracts for NGEN early next year. Two industry teams are competing for separately awarded contracts: one for enterprises services and a second for transport services. They could reach a total value of $5.3 billion over the next five years.
NMCI incumbent Hewlett-Packard [HP] is leading a team consisting of Northrop Grumman [NOC], IBM [IBM], AT&T [T] and Lockheed Martin [LMT]. A second team has been formed by Harris Corp. [HRS] and Computer Sciences Corp. [CSC] and includes General Dynamics [GD] and Verizon Communications [VZ].
NGEN is intended to provide secure, net-centric data and services to 800,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel and connect 400,000 workstations. NMCI already represents the largest intranet in the U.S. government and began in 2000 under a contract with Electronic Data Systems, which HP acquired in 2008.
In a September report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) questioned whether the services could meet the transition timeframe, warning of potential cost overruns and delays. The Navy’s issuing of the final RFP in May came two years behind the original schedule and months later than revised plans to do so by the end of 2011.
The GAO said the delays could force the Navy to reissue a continuity of services contract for NMCI that will add to the overall cost.