The Defense Department has made the highly-anticipated announcement of the contracting team that will build the potential $3.4 billion dollar Next Generation Enterprise Network for the Navy and Marine Corps over up to five years.
HP Enterprise Services (NYSE: HPQ) will lead a team comprising of AT&T (NYSE: T), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC).
The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price, fixed-price award fee contract for NGEN contains $321, 689, 010 in base funds and includes four one-year options that would take the program to its full ceiling value.
HP came in as the incumbent contractor for NGEN’s predecessor program, the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, and has received extensions on different portions of the NMCI program within the previous four months as the government prepares for the transition to NGEN.
A $1.2 billion contract modification awarded in February covered infrastructure and computer software and extended the total ceiling value to $6.1 billion through September 2014.
The company also received an estimated $679.8 million increase on its contract to provide information technology services for the NMCI and that contract’s total value is worth approximately $5.6 billion through June 2014.
Both modifications were intended to continue the NMCI until the branches could complete their transitions to NGEN.
The Navy said in a release it expects its transition to NGEN to take up to 13 months, adding the Marine Corps has completed its move of services from HP to its own personnel under a government-owned, government-operated model with contract support.
NGEN network services for the Navy will work under a government-owned, contractor-operated model.
Sean Stackley, assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition, said the Navy intends for NGEN to help align sailors and Marines with the Defense Department‘s Joint Information Environment.
The Pentagon aims for the JIE to consolidate its enterprise networks into one global network.
NGEN is intended to function as an acquisition approach for network services consolidated in 2000 under NMCI, which delivers information technology services to more than 400, 000 seats and 800, 000 users, the Pentagon says.
The Navy started accepting bids on NGEN in May 2012 with an original deadline to submit proposals by July 18, but extended the date to Aug. 8 because of severe weather in the Washington region and amendments to the RFP.
An award notice was also first scheduled for February but the Navy delayed the announcement several times to further evaluate all proposals.
Seven proposals for NGEN were submitted to the Navy via the Space and Naval Warfare System Command E-Commerce and FedBizOpps websites.
Work during the initial base year will occur 2, 500 Navy and Marine Corps locations worldwide such as major bases and single-user sites.
