Four get Army ITES computer contracts

The Army today awarded four contracts, worth $500 million, for the hardware and software component of its two-fold Information Technology Enterprise Solutions procurement program.

The three-year base, two-year option ITES Functional Area 1 Enterprise Hardware Solutions indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, which will begin Oct. 1, went to Dell Computer of Round Rock, Texas; GTSI Corp. of Chantilly, Va.; Hewlett-Packard Co. of Gaithersburg, Md.; and Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems of Bethesda, Md.

Making the announcement were the Information Technology E-Commerce and Commercial Contracting Center, the Army Small Computer Program, the Army CIO and Network Enterprise Technology Command.

Through the hardware and software portion of ITES, organizations across the Army will be able to buy client and notebook PCs, servers, storage systems, networking equipment, operating systems, commercial software and peripherals, as well as biometric devices and software, and wearable computers.

Contracts for the other part of the procurement - mission support services - are under evaluation and are expected to be awarded in mid-October.

Services users can procure include installation, equipment maintenance, site survey, system configuration and integration, image loading, data migration, asset tracking and potentially, legacy equipment maintenance, according to the announcement.

The ITES procurement, which will be managed by the Army Small Computer Program, is part of a larger Army initiative to consolidate and merge disparate systems under an integrated enterprise architecture, Army officials said.

Through the Army Enterprise Infostructure Transformation program, the service will replace dozens of legacy systems and forge "a single Army network, one portal," said Kevin Carroll, the Army's program executive officer for enterprise information systems.

ITES will complement the Warfighter Information Network-Terrestrial program, a $6.6 billion project for IP and cellular communications, the $877 million Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion program and the $3.2 billion Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization program.

Dawn S. Onley writes for Government Computer News