IBM Lands $17 Million Defense Collaboration Deal

International Business Machines Corp. has been hired by the Defense Information Systems Agency to provide "pay for use" collaboration services under the Net-Centric Enterprise Services program.

Under a $17 million contract announced last week, IBM will bring instant messaging, text chat, Web conferencing, whiteboarding and application-sharing to the Defense Department. IBM will host unclassified applications for the Defense Department at a secure facility managed by ServerVault Corp., according to Linda Marshall, director for defense agencies for IBM Global Services in Fairfax. The contract is for one year with two option years.

The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to acquire a second commercially managed collaboration service to promote competition between the service providers, according to officials. Defense users will eventually have two buttons on their Web portal with which they will choose between the providers.

Collaboration is one of nine core services that make up the Net-Centric Enterprise Services program. The others are applications, discovery, enterprise service management, mediation, messaging, security, storage and user assistance.

The contract is structured so that the Defense Department pays for only the collaboration services it uses, said Rebecca Harris, program director of Net-Centric Enterprise Services at the agency.

The Defense Department previously handled collaboration capabilities in an ad hoc fashion, with the military services and agencies using different collaboration services -- some developed in the department and some commercially acquired, Harris said.

"Until now, collaboration tools tended to be local enclave solutions, or at best limited to a single service or command," she said. "An enterprise solution provides additional capability by enabling communication across organizational boundaries."

Although the contract was awarded to bring collaboration tools to military personnel deployed around the world, it will also promote telecommuting in the Defense Department, Marshall said.

Dawn Onley is a staff writer with Government Computer News. For news on this and other government contracts go tohttp://www.gcn.com.