From the Editor's Desk: Trish Williams

Titan Corp., a fast-growing information technology company whose acumen has impressed Wall Street, bears a close watch as the company stakes a bigger claim to federal business in 2000.Titan Corp. Chief Executive Gene Ray tells Washington Technology Staff Writer Nick Wakeman in a front-page story that the company's purchase of Advanced Communications Systems Inc. will not slow its acquisition strategy.San Diego-based Titan has been on an acquisition tear that saw it gobble up three government contractors and three commercial companies in 1999.The company's four main businesses include a defense unit, a thriving commercial food pasteurization division, an e-commerce unit and a commercial wireless unit. Titan's aim is to jump from $650 million in annual revenue in 2000 to $1 billion-plus in the next three years. The ACS deal, which will toughen Titan's defense expertise, is slated to close in the first quarter. ACS' biggest customer is the Navy, which is planing a host of major IT projects and whose overall IT budget is $2.3 billion in fiscal 1999.According to Ray, Titan now is in the hunt for companies that primarily do communications and information technology business with the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies.As many other midtier IT companies in the federal sector know only too well, size is the key to survival. Continued consolidation is a certainty in 2000; the only question is who is going to make the next big deal.XXXSPLITXXX-