Microsoft Vendors Win a $7.6 Billion Deal for Pentagon Software (bloomberg.com) 43
Vendors led by General Dynamics were awarded a contract for as much as $7.6 billion to provide Microsoft office software for the Pentagon, the Defense Department and General Services Administration said. From a report: While the Microsoft 360 productivity software is cloud-based, the contract isn't related to the hotly disputed "JEDI" cloud project that the Pentagon has yet to award. Amazon.com and Microsoft are the two remaining competitors for that prize, which may reach $10 billion. The project awarded Thursday, called Defense Enterprise Office Solutions, or DEOS, will provide tools including word processing, email, file-sharing and spreadsheets. The agencies said they chose a bid from General Dynamics' CSRA unit and partner companies for a contract that the Defense Department estimates at as much as $7.6 billion over 10 years, including a five-year base period and opportunities to renew.
Microsoft 360? (Score:5, Funny)
I would think, for that kind of money, the government would get the full 365...
Re:Microsoft 360? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would think, for that kind of money, the government would get the full 365...
They're already spending $7.6 billion on this. You do NOT want to know what the extra 5 days would cost...
$1 trillion dollars (Score:2)
And with that, Microsoft's market cap is over a trillion dollars. Well done!
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$7.6B in context (Score:1)
Divide by ten. Still, $100 million LibreOffice dev (Score:2)
It's a ten-year deal and you quoted 1-year budgets.
Still, it's a ton of money. $7.6 billion over 10 years.
Think about what even $100 million spent on LibreOffice development could get you - anything and everything you want, pretty much. That's 80 developers for 10 years. Plus the taxpayers, who are paying for it, benefit from a greatly improved open source office suite.
Even you spend $500 million on training, infrastructure, etc, that's still 90% less than Office.
It's interesting to me how infrequently p
Re: Divide by ten. Still, $100 million LibreOffice (Score:3, Insightful)
100 million 'spent' on Libre Office would turn it into a huge project full of opportunists and destroy the project. You can't spend your way to success. Many have tried .
Works all the time. Don't put the money in charge (Score:2)
Putting money *in charge* of an open source project can certainly make a mess
A couple hundred million have been spent on improvements to the Linux kernel. That has worked quite well. The Apache server, again many millions of dollars. Heck I personally was paid $100,000 to write improvements to Moodle, the open source CMS. Most of the other hundred or so developers were being paid to make whatever improvements their employers wanted. Probably $10 million or more has been spent and the project is very he
Zzzz (Score:1)
We're really gonna do this? (Score:1)
Well hell, just put the nuclear codes on a post-it on the fridge in the break room!
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Well hell, just put the nuclear codes on a post-it on the fridge in the break room!
Wasn't the code 00000000? That cat was let out of the bag long ago. ;)
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Clippy: "It looks like you are trying to nuke a hurricane; would you like some help?"
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Just a little bit closer... [twimg.com]
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can't tell diff between his hair and hurricane
DoD should NOT use MS software (Score:2)
Microsoft can't provide it cheaper? (Score:2)
Vendors led by General Dynamics were awarded a contract for as much as $7.6 billion to provide Microsoft office software for the Pentagon...
Did Microsoft not bid on this? How in hell can a group of contractors provide Microsoft Office for less than Microsoft themselves?
Re:Microsoft can't provide it cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did Microsoft not bid on this? How in hell can a group of contractors provide Microsoft Office for less than Microsoft themselves?
Microsoft is not a normal defense contractor. They don't know how to play the game.
General Dynamics knows how to get the winning bid. They are staffed with ex-generals, ex-colonels, and plenty of ex-DOD-bureaucrats. They will provide nice cushy jobs for the next generation as well ... as long as they get the contract. That how the revolving door works.
It is much better for Microsoft to let GD take the lead on this.
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It is interesting to me mostly because GD outsourced most of their own IT back in the day.... Now that every US secure IT outsourcer was bought by HP, I guess they had to build their own.
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This certainly this isn't some "here's your license number. click here to install... done" sort of deal. There is likely a bunch of customization work to be done, like integration with various proprietary systems that already exist, or new ones to be designed. Office has an entire plug-in ecosystem, and the defense agencies may require some specialty software development or very specific deployment scenarios tailored for them. For instance, the DoD obviously deals with huge amounts of very classified do
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A lot of this kind of stuff really only makes sense when you understand the requirements and all the complexities that come with those requirements.
Yeah, right, like I'm going to let *that* stop me from commenting...
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True. Let's not let reality spoil our fun.
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Who don't have split loyalty to Communist China.
Dont support banned groups, really like other nations more than the USA , have faith problems, have lifestyle problems.
After a few decades the security services in a few of the 5 eye nations finally know what makes a person walk out with US secrets.
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Not if you want US contractors who passed background investigations.
If MS won the contract, you can be sure they'd have to create a team who could pass the background investigations. Besides, do you think the vendors go though and edit the code line by line, then recompile it before sending it on to the Pentagon?
Who don't have split loyalty to Communist China.
See above re the background investigations.
Dont support banned groups, really like other nations more than the USA , have faith problems, have lifestyle problems.
I'm sorry, but if you think General Dynamics or any government contractor only hires straight christians, you've got your head up your ass, and it really does belong there with that kind of thinking.
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Decades of reviews after spying events by "trusted" US staff/mil has allowed the FBI, CIA, NSA to kind of understand who will spy on the USA.
Gambling and debt. Smart nations offer more cash.
Been around Communism.
Been Communist while getting an education.
Lifestyle. Open to new friends from other nations? Get talking.
A faith at constant war with the USA? Do what everyone in the faith has to do over the decades of working with the US mil.
A split loyalty to another nation
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But the profits man, but the profits. Cloud addiction, corporations handling government secrets, corporations controlling the profits, profts, first, last and everything inbetween. Russia and China will know more about what is going on in the US government that the US government will and all for sale. Profits on top of Profits.
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Educated, not a criminal, US citizen? Know international languages?
Welcome to the world of contracting
Years later some intelligence specialist now trusted hands out US secrets to the media/other nations/Communists.
This is how Taxpayer money is wasted? (Score:3, Interesting)
So the Pentagon employs around 23,000 people [google.com]. Microsoft Office 365 costs $99 per year for up to 5 computers: so 460,000 per year [ 23,000/5 * 100 ].
So how is a 3rd-party office contract worth 760,000,000 per year? Over 1500 times more expensive.
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Microsoft Office 365 costs $99 per year for up to 5 computers: so 460,000 per year [ 23,000/5 * 100 ].
I'm not a licensing expert, but I don't think the "per 5 computers" thing applies here. I believe MS office is a "named user" model, while I'm allowed to install office on 5 computers, they are only for me to use. Installing it for my neighbor would be out of bounds.
So how is a 3rd-party office contract worth 760,000,000 per year? Over 1500 times more expensive.
Did you miss the "General Dynamics" part? That fact right there automatically adds two zeros to the end of the contract price.
In all seriousness though, it's a 5 year contract (with options for up to 10 years), for up to 3 million computers,
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So the Pentagon employs around 23,000 people [google.com].
Your math is WAY off. First of all, 23,000 people may work in the Pentagon BUILDING, but TFA is using "Pentagon" to mean the entire DoD, which employs about 3 million people (1.4M active, 1.1M reserves, 0.5M civilian).
Second, the contract is for TEN YEARS, so comparing it against annual costs is not reasonable.
If use the actual head count (3M instead of 23K) and divide by 10 to go from a decade to a year, then the cost is about the same.
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Even if it's actually 3,000,000 licenses ($100/5 computers)... that is still only 60,000,000 / year, and GD is charging 12.7 times that.
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Even if it's actually 3,000,000 licenses ($100/5 computers)... that is still only 60,000,000 / year, and GD is charging 12.7 times that.
It’s about 2 million employees and the 5 per is not 5 unrelated people. So 100 per year for ten years is 1k. This works out to about 40/year ir 400$ over ten years; a savings of 600 times 2 million it 1.2 billion. If it is for SIPR as well the security issues are also included. Getting an ATO for Libre Office would be a Nightmare; not to mention the screams when DOD doesn’t release source code since it is only used internally.
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Even if it's actually 3,000,000 licenses ($100/5 computers)... that is still only 60,000,000 / year, and GD is charging 12.7 times that.
1) You don't get 5 licensed installs per licence. You get up to 5 installs for a single named user to access. Someone else using that PC would need their own licence.Your calcs are wrong, DoD will pay for every user account associated to a licence.
2) What OS is DoD running? Think they're going to run Windows as well under that Office suite, cause running Office 365 via web browser is a lot less useful. If that case - and what the article is missing - is whether this is for M365 and not O365. Big differe
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Good news for Russian/Chinese agencies! (Score:3)
Well, we now know who gets JEDI... (Score:3)
And the consolation prize of $7.6B goes to Microsoft. The $10B Big Kahuna is going to Amazon, unless the deal is squelched by the Great Pumpkin because of his dislike for Bezos.
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Want to understand JEDI?
Follow the history of the bids, the draft bid specifications and why the cloud is the new must have foe the US mil and has to be where it is
These aren't the data centers you're looking for
How is this news? (Score:1)
Every government building I've been in had all of their desktop PCs running M$ software. It's been this way for decades now.
Why not something secure? (Score:2)
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The US mil has to find, keep and pay for "staff".
Want to put them in front of Ada code and get them to "code" a project in real time every time they have computer work to do?
They need a GUI, something easy for very average people to work with and use.
A GUI an average Michael and Jessica can use as they have seen it before entering the US mil.
Something like they used during their many years of education and while relaxing with computer games.
The US mil cant fill its special
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I do believe ikhider was referring to the Microsoft organization.
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Who can the US mil find to work for them in their own mil ranks?
So go full contractor.
Watch as the best and brightest had over US secrets to other nations, Communists, their own faith groups, the media..