DISA wants additional collaboration tools

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.?The director of the Defense Information Systems Agency would like to see a request for quotations for a second collaboration services software tool hit the streets in 60 days.

In July, DISA awarded a $17 million contract to IBM Corp. to provide enterprisewide "pay for use" collaboration services under its Net-Centric Enterprise Services program. In addition to the IBM deal, which runs for one base year with two option years, DISA plans to acquire a second commercially managed collaboration service to promote competition between the service providers, Croom said. Collaboration software should include instant messaging, text chat, Web conferencing and whiteboarding.

"We're not paying those folks by the tool. We're paying them by the usage," Croom said at the Army LandWarNet Conference.

Collaboration is one of nine core services that make up the NCES initiative. The others are applications, discovery, enterprise service management, mediation, messaging, security, storage and user assistance. DISA eventually will look at all of the core services to figure out a way to deliver them across DOD.

After the RFQ goes out soliciting bids for the second collaboration contract, Croom added, the next enterprise service the agency will look at is discovery.

Dawn S. Onley is a staff writer for Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.