<FONT SIZE=2>The Air Force wants information to flow seamlessly among its commanders and warfighters, whether it comes from a manned or unmanned aircraft, or even from space. To carry out this transformation, the Air Force in May formed the XI Command under Lt. Gen. Leslie Kenne. As part of her staff, Brig. Gen. Dan Goodrich is director of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance integration, or C4ISR integration.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>If integrators want to look at the future of network-centric procurement, a good starting point is the Joint Vision 2010 and Joint Vision 2020 documents, said Louis Ray, president and chief executive officer of Matcom International Corp., an IT and engineering services provider in Alexandria, Va., that does work in military tactical data links. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>"Decision makers aren't paid to be data collectors," said Douglas Barton, director of technology for the missions systems division of Lockheed Martin Corp. "If they have 10 minutes to make a decision, they shouldn't spend nine and a half minutes gathering data."</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>In July, MTC Technologies Corp. began work on a first-of-its-kind project that essentially will turn Air Force refueling aircraft into flying data routers.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>When Dave Nelson joined NASA in 1999 as deputy chief information officer for information technology security, he knew the agency needed to improve its network security. But rather than take a scattershot approach to fixing the space agency's Internet vulnerabilities, Nelson's staff developed a list of about 50 top vulnerabilities to target first.</FONT>
Dell Computer Corp., won a contract to provide more than 60,000 desktop and notebook computers to the Marine Corps, the company announced Oct. 3. The computer systems are part of the Marine Corp's Enterprise Sustainment Initiative. Dell did not disclose the value of the contract.
Wireless voice and data services are going to become an ever-larger portion of the government telecommunications market over the next several years, according to a new study by Frost & Sullivan Inc.
Federal spending on computer systems will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent, from $12 billion in fiscal 2002 to more than $18 billion in 2007, according to a report by Input Inc., a Chantilly, Va., market research company.
Stanley Associates Inc. strengthened its position in the federal market with its acquisition of CCI Inc., a technical and management services company whose customers include the Naval Air Systems Command, NASA and the Coast Guard. The company also won a five-year contract to provide a information technology services to the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs. The value of the award was not disclosed. Stanley and CCI, both privately held companies, did not disclose terms of the acquisition. CCI has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Stanley Associates, Alexandria, Va. Stanley Associates has approximately 1,000 employees and had revenue of $109 million in fiscal 2002, according to Bernie Tylor, spokesman for Stanley.
<FONT SIZE=2>From a retirement home for research-lab primates to the world's largest medical library, the National Institutes of Health has a staggering variety and number of buildings to maintain. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>On May 16, South Carolina Chief Information Security Officer Jim MacDougall discovered that the state's servers were being scanned for vulnerabilities by a hacker in Beijing. After informing Matt DeZee, the state chief information officer, MacDougall blocked out a range of Internet protocol addresses, including the ones scanning the system.</FONT>
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will distribute more than $900 million to state governments in coming months for bioterrorism preparedness, including about $300 million slated for information technology solutions.
When faulty routers or denial-of-service attacks plague an Army network, the top brass want to know one thing: How does it affect the ability of Army units to perform their missions?
All the clues were there: Student pilots interested in flying planes but not landing them; Osama bin Laden wanting to hijack a plane; funds being transferred to the United States from known bin Laden operatives.
Sept. 11, 2001 - 8:46 a.m. American Flight 11 hits the north tower of World Trade Center. 9:05 a.m. - United Flight 175 hits the south tower. 9:38 a.m. - American Flight 77 hits the Pentagon.
After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Veridian Corp.'s employees rushed to the windows at their Pentagon City headquarters, where they could see the smoke rising into the sky. Many were ex-military, and they watched, frustrated, champing at the bit for a chance to strike back.
In June, the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva set the equipment standard for metropolitan-sized optical networks, those networks less than 31 miles long.
When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington cut the ribbon on its new data network in June, the center became the first U.S. Army medical system to use the newly ratified 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard. Installed by network integrator Force 3 Inc., the backbone replaces Walter Reed's previous asynchronous transfer mode network, which was slowing down under the weight of 6,000 users, said Trevia Martin, Force 3's vice president of operations who oversaw the installation.
<FONT SIZE=2>General Dynamics Corp.'s aggressive moves to position itself as an information technology provider to the Defense Department are well known. But the company also has been quietly working to win more business with civilian agencies, especially by leveraging its engineering and network talents developed for defense customers.</FONT>
