Submission + - HP Holds Navy Network Hostage for $3.3 Billion (wired.com)
Tootech writes: military An anonymous reader writes "From the This could only happen to the Gov't Dept: Someday, somehow, the U.S. Navy would like to run its networks — maybe even own its computers again. After 10 years and nearly $10 billion, many sailors are tired of leasing their PCs, and relying on a private contractor to operate most of their data systems. Troops are sick of getting stuck with inboxes that hold 150 times less than a Gmail account, and local networks that go down for days while Microsoft Office 2007 gets installed in 2010. But the Navy just can’t quit its tangled relationship with Hewlett-Packard. The admirals and the firm recently signed another $3.3 billion no-bid contract that begins Oct. 1st. It’s a final, five-year deal, both sides promise, to let the Navy gently wean itself from its reliance on HP. But that’s what they said the last time, and the time before that.
It’s become a Washington cliché that the military and the intelligence community rely too much on outside contractors. Everyone from President Obama to Defense Secretary Robert Gates has promised to cut back on Pentagon outsourcing. But the Navy’s ongoing inability to separate itself from Hewlett-Packard – after years of trying – shows how difficult that withdrawal is going to be.
Just to make sure its core networks keep running – to make sure marines and sailors can keep e-mailing each other on Oct. 1st — the Navy is paying Hewlett Packard $1.788 billion. (Booz Allen Hamilton, another outside contractor, handled the negotiations with Hewlett-Packard for the military.) The service will spend another $1.6 billion to buy from HP the equipment troops have worked on for years, and to license the network diagrams and configuration documents, so that the Navy can begin to plan for a future in which they’re not utterly reliant on HP for their most basic communications. In essence, the Navy is paying to look at the blueprints to the network it has been using for a decade.
“HP is holding the Navy hostage, and there isn’t a peep about it,” one Department of the Navy civilian tells Danger Room. “We basically had two recourses: pay, or send in the Marines.”"
It’s become a Washington cliché that the military and the intelligence community rely too much on outside contractors. Everyone from President Obama to Defense Secretary Robert Gates has promised to cut back on Pentagon outsourcing. But the Navy’s ongoing inability to separate itself from Hewlett-Packard – after years of trying – shows how difficult that withdrawal is going to be.
Just to make sure its core networks keep running – to make sure marines and sailors can keep e-mailing each other on Oct. 1st — the Navy is paying Hewlett Packard $1.788 billion. (Booz Allen Hamilton, another outside contractor, handled the negotiations with Hewlett-Packard for the military.) The service will spend another $1.6 billion to buy from HP the equipment troops have worked on for years, and to license the network diagrams and configuration documents, so that the Navy can begin to plan for a future in which they’re not utterly reliant on HP for their most basic communications. In essence, the Navy is paying to look at the blueprints to the network it has been using for a decade.
“HP is holding the Navy hostage, and there isn’t a peep about it,” one Department of the Navy civilian tells Danger Room. “We basically had two recourses: pay, or send in the Marines.”"
