HP holds Navy network hostage? That's your free market for you

[yurbud]

I've often asked at the college where I work why we don't use free, open source software instead of overpriced proprietary stuff that does far less, far less reliably. I suspect it's the same problem as with the military in this story: the person buying the piece of shit software is not the same person using it, so they don't care about quality or in the military case, vulnerability to corporate blackmail, and more than likely, the buyer is getting their palm greased by the seller.

This is one conflict where sending in the Marines should have been the first choice.

HP Holds Navy Network ‘Hostage’ for $3.3 Billion




Someday, somehow, the U.S. Navy would like to run its networks — maybe even own its computers again. After 10 years and nearly $10 billion, many sailors are tired of leasing their PCs, and relying on a private contractor to operate most of their data systems. Troops are sick of getting stuck with inboxes that hold 150 times less than a Gmail account, and local networks that go down for days while Microsoft Office 2007 gets installed … in 2010. But the Navy just can’t quit its tangled relationship with Hewlett-Packard. The admirals and the firm recently signed another $3.3 billion no-bid contract that begins Oct. 1st. It’s a final, five-year deal, both sides promise, to let the Navy gently wean itself from its reliance on HP. But that’s what they said the last time, and the time before that.

It’s become a Washington cliché that the military and the intelligence community rely too much on outside contractors. Everyone from President Obama to Defense Secretary Robert Gates has promised to cut back on Pentagon outsourcing. But the Navy’s ongoing inability to separate itself from Hewlett-Packard – after years of trying – shows how difficult that withdrawal is going to be.

Just to make sure its core networks keep running – to make sure marines and sailors can keep e-mailing each other on Oct. 1st — the Navy is paying Hewlett Packard $1.788 billion. (Booz Allen Hamilton, another outside contractor, handled the negotiations with Hewlett-Packard for the military.) The service will spend another $1.6 billion to buy from HP the equipment troops have worked on for years, and to license the network diagrams and configuration documents, so that the Navy can begin to plan for a future in which they’re not utterly reliant on HP for their most basic communications. In essence, the Navy is paying to look at the blueprints to the network it has been using for a decade.

“HP is holding the Navy hostage, and there isn’t a peep about it,” one Department of the Navy civilian tells Danger Room. “We basically had two recourses: pay, or send in the Marines.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/hp-holds-navy-network-hostage/#ixzz0yykxgkvr

Follow up story here: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/sailors-contractors-face-off-over-hostage-network/

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. The admirals and the firm recently signed another $3.3 billion no-bid contract that begins Oct. 1st

Mebbe HP should. change their name to Hallipurton

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. The OP quotation leaves out key items...pls read the full article

This is about the NMCI contract which was won by EDS. It almost bankrupted EDS and the users hate it too. Lots of accusations on both sides.

The link in the OP is just to the follow up on comments.

[yurbud]

3. there's two links in OP

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. I agree, but the quote does not have the defining word NMCI in it

which gives critical context. The WIRED headline is almost childish in its language.

[HipChick]

5. NMCI? yep agree...

didn't EDS have the contract at one time?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. They were bought by HP. The original NMCI contract nearly bankrupted them

[haele]

7. They still have the contract -

it ended up being the contract that ate the contractor- HP took them over as both write-off and a way of getting rid of overstock. Oh, and to spend a little legal money to make money off the government, due to the way the contract was originally written.

Navy Acquisition has evolved enough that had time been taken and NMCI been deployed even two/three years later, most of the cost over-runs and contractual problems would have been mitigated and the Navy been able to save a couple billion dollars over the years.

As it stands, NMCI sucks. And the best thing that could be said about it is that the Navy doesn't deploy it on ships...

Haele

[McCamy Taylor]

8. But...but.. some military general is getting a GREAT job with HP when he retires!

[HipChick]

9. Navy? Then we are talking Admiral ranks

[Lilith Velkor]

10. Jesus Fuck.