EDS: Navy approves NMCI contract changes

The lead contractor on the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet project announced today the Navy has agreed to contract changes that will allow it to move more quickly to reduce legacy applications.

EDS Corp. said the changes would result in "considerable cost savings" for the $8.82 billion project, which has been a drag on the Plano, Texas, information technology company.

One of the company's biggest jobs is trimming the number of legacy applications from 100,000 to about 3,000, a task that has proved daunting. In the nearly four years since EDS won the contract, legacy applications have been reduced to about 30,000.

Contract modifications will allow EDS to take orders for application hosting services, including network and server management, security and data storage, the company said.

In a mid July statement, EDS first revealed it had a contract modification that allowed it to accept orders for add-on applications. Today's announcement provided more details of the scope.

Once services are in place, and have received necessary approvals, "this will allow us to gradually reduce the number of legacy networks being operated and maintained," Chris Christopher, deputy director for future operations, communications, and business initiatives in the NMCI Office, said in a statement.

"This is a pilot in the overall approach to getting enterprise control of our server and application hosting portfolio," Christopher said.

When it is complete, NMCI will provide voice, video and data communications services for 400,000 users.