Army ADMC-3 to speed up hardware modernization
The emerging ADMC-3 deal, now under protest, aims to expedite hardware upgrades and integration of new technology.
The Army will speed up the pace of hardware upgrades and accelerate a mandated move to Windows 10 as part of a the third iteration of the Army Desktop & Mobile Computing (ADMC-3) contract, according to officials from the Computer Hardware Enterprise Software and Solutions (CHESS) office.
CHESS awarded its latest ADMC contract with a ceiling of $5 billion in February to 9 winners out of the 58 companies that bid. The results, however, are currently under protest, creating a situation where the Army cannot discuss particulars of the deal. While the protest is delaying implementation of many of the ADMC-3 provisions, the service is nonetheless moving ahead with plans to secure its data systems once the deal moves forward.
The Army plans to have the majority of office Windows 10 deployed by January of 2018.This move, which is also being vigorously pursued at the DOD level, is designed to increase security and keep pace with rapid innovations taking place in the private sector.
“It's a double-edged sword is because it does kind of require us to move faster than we have before in terms of how often we upgrade equipment that's in the field,” said Doug Haskin, product lead for the Army CHESS program. “This creates a more compressed life cycle.”
The Army is currently procuring desktops, laptops, monitors and printers from the current iteration of the deal called ADMC-2, he added.
“One of the big changes between ADMC-2 and ADMC-3 was the consolidated buy. Right now on ADMC-2 we have two consolidated buy periods every fiscal year for three months. Each vendor gets to offer one particular model of laptop or desktop for each of several categories,” Haskin explained.
Several incumbents failed to receive awards and six companies have protested so far.
The winners of ADMC 3 are:
- Blue Tech Inc. San Diego, (W52P1J-17-D-0009);
- Iron Bow Technologies LLC, Chantilly, Va. (W52P1J-17-D-0010);
- Red River Computers Co. Inc., Claremont, N.H. (W52P1J-17-D-0011)
- Intelligent Decisions Inc., Ashburn, Va. (W52P1J-17-D-0012)
- NCS Technologies Inc., Gainesville, Va. (W52P1J-17-D-0013)
- Dell Federal Systems LP, Round Rock, Texas (W52P1J-17-D-0014)
- Strategic Communications LLC, Louisville, Ky. (W52P1J-17-D-0015)
- GovSmart Inc., Charlottesville, Va. (W52P1J-17-D-0016)
- Ideal Systems Solutions Inc., Minnetonka, Minn. (W52P1J-17-D-0017)
Missing from that list are ADMC 2 incumbents HP Inc., CDW-G, MPC-G, Telos Corp., Transource Computer, and Westwood Computer, according to Washington Technology.