Ready for life after NMCI?

[unhappycamper]

Replacing NMCI
Navy may get more control of network in 2010


Ready for life after NMCI?
By Antonie Boessenkool - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 17, 2008 6:10:13 EDT

When the Navy’s $9.9 billion contract for its sprawling Navy-Marine Corps Intranet program expires in a little over two years, there will be changes.

Whether they will be the kind of changes that will make sailors and Marines — fed up with years of error messages and piles of other user problems — dance for joy remains to be seen. As for the Next Generation Enterprise Network, the follow-on to NMCI, Robert Carey, the Navy Department’s chief information officer, wouldn’t comment on when the Navy would put out a request for proposals.

Carey did say, however, that the Navy will assume more control of network operations when it transitions to NGEN in 2010. The key to making the network more popular with sailors and Marines could hinge on how much control the military will get — a detail which has yet to be hammered out.

“We need to be able to respond in very short timeframes to demand signals from the fleet,” Carey said. “If we make a change on the network (now) ... the first thing we have to do is decide how does the contract reflect that.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that it is unquestionably the Department of the Navy civilian or military person’s responsibility ... to make this thing go and have the ability to make changes and operate the network.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/06/navy_nmci_061608w/