Contractors to pitch wares at new Pentagon's IT center

The Joint Chiefs of Staff is less than six months away from opening the Information Technology Development Center, a one-stop shopping center where technology companies can market their latest technologies to Defense Department users.

Long gone are the days when IT vendors roam the Pentagon, "getting lost" in their search for the right people to sell a new technology or a concept, said Lt. Gen. Joseph Kellogg Jr., director of command, control, communications and computer systems for the Joint Staff.

The center will be located at the Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, Va., said Kellogg, who spoke at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Washington chapter luncheon today at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton in Arlington, Va. The number of people working at the center has not been determined yet, he said.

This center "is to develop IT at the joint level," Kellogg said. "The intent is for [the vendors] to come in and say, 'I have this wonderful widget, and it works both ways,' and we can say, 'Here's what we want.'"

Kellogg also said the Joint Forces Command is about 60 days from signing off on a policy that would make it responsible for all joint command and control systems. The military services now share oversight of the Defense joint C2 systems, depending on which branch developed which system.

"The services are going to have to give up some of their sovereignty," Kellogg said. "We need a seamless C2 environment."