Biting off more than one can chew can lead to indigestion. For EDS Corp., a stomachache came in the form of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet project, a fixed-price contract pegged at nearly $7 billion when it was awarded in 2000.
It's a tried-and-true government contractor strategy: Take a selected handful of former clients and offer them jobs with your company. They know the markets, the players and, most importantly, exactly what you need to close big deals.
Persistence usually garners few headlines, positive or otherwise. For EDS Corp., dogged by disputes over compensation and performance six years into its largest federal contract, staying the course managed to generate favorable reaction as one year led into another.
Prosperity loves company. That may be one way to characterize the proposed acquisition of Anteon International Corp. by General Dynamics Corp. Or maybe prosperity just loves more prosperity. Whatever the description, if the Justice Department OKs the $2.2 billion sale, the deal will marry two powerhouses on the Top 100 list.
State and local governments are beginning a major retooling of their telecom infrastructures, replacing legacy systems, boosting connect speeds and, with an array of state-of-the-art wireless devices, untethering deskbound civil servants.
In late October, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, led in the United States by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the Energy Department, published a scientific summary of the finished human genome sequence, reducing the estimated number of human protein-coding genes from 35,000 to 25,000.
Conventional wisdom identifies rocket science and brain surgery as rigorous disciplines that should be avoided by all but the very brightest. But it is biology and deciphering life's genetic code, with a bewildering array of molecular interactions and expressions that scientists are just beginning to understand, that may prove the greatest intellectual challenge.
In the war on terrorism, American special forces hunt an elusive enemy through terrain characterized more by boulders and caves than well-marked roads or developed infrastructure.
To pinpoint the identities, strategies, habits and even locations of known and suspected terrorists, America's cyberwarriors are using Internet-derived technologies to track financial transactions, e-mail exchanges, satellite-borne transmissions and telephone records.
In the war on terrorism, American special forces hunt an elusive enemy through terrain characterized more by boulders and caves than well-marked roads or developed infrastructure.
To pinpoint the identities, strategies, habits and even locations of known and suspected terrorists, America's cyberwarriors are using Internet-derived technologies to track financial transactions, e-mail exchanges, satellite-borne transmissions and telephone records.
