Lockheed team wins AKO award

Lockheed Martin Corp. and team of fellow Top 100 systems integrators won a $152 million contract to manage the Army Knowledge Online enterprise Web portal.

Lockheed Martin, working with Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. as subcontractors, will provide systems operations and maintenance, network communications, hardware and software integration and around-the-clock help desk support for NIPRNet and the SIPRNet. The performance-based contract is for one year with six option years.

Bryon Young, director of the Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Commercial Contracting Center, called the competition "an excellent example of the benefits that can be achieved through a performance-based acquisition strategy."

"Combining the great things that AKO has done in the past with the net-centric future that Army modularity will provide - this is a great opportunity for the Army," added Kevin Carroll, the Army's program executive officer for enterprise information systems, in a news release. PEO EIS has oversight of AKO.

AKO will integrate hundreds of applications and services across a common enterprise portal. Prior to contract award, AKO had seven contractors managing various components, but Army officials thought they could achieve some efficiencies by moving to a single contractor.

AKO users log on to the portal roughly half a million times daily.

Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., is ranked No. 1 on Washington Technology's Top 100. CSC of El Segundo, Calif., is ranked No. 4, and SAIC of San Diego is No. 3. The rankings measure the largest government IT contractors.