The Navy is gearing up to recompete its next generation enterprise network, or NGEN.
Two years ago, the Navy awarded Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services [HP] the NGEN contract, which runs until 2018. The first industry day for the new contract will occur next month, giving the service plenty of time to figure out what innovative capabilities are out in the marketplace, said Victor Gavin, the Navy’s program executive officer for enterprise information systems.
“In this space … five years is an eternity,” he said at breakfast held by the National Defense Industrial Association. “A really easy thing for us to do is to pick up what we did before, dust it off, put a new name on it, put a new year in it and send it back out. I don’t want to do that. I believe the technology has changed so much, I believe that the business model and the delivery model of that technology has changed so much that we need to rethink how we…acquire this new capability.”
NGEN retains the same capabilities and services as the legacy Navy Marine Corps Intranet, but changes the contracting model. Instead of Hewlett-Packard owning and operating the network as it did in NMCI, the Navy owns NGEN, allowing the service to compete certain hardware, software and computing services when it’s possible to reduce costs or improve performance.
Having that ability will save the Navy $1.4 billion, Gavin said. HP stands to win a total $3.5 billion in contract awards if all options are exercised for the initial five-year contract.
The Navy is increasingly taking advantage of commercial technologies, including Android cell phones, iPad and mobile applications, he said. Just as importantly, the service wants to increasingly adopt the “business philosophy” and best practices of industry. During the NGEN industry day, program officials will focus on getting feedback on how the private sector acquires and delivers IT services, as well as how government processes could be modified to mirror that, he said.
The NGEN recompete is one of the biggest opportunities for industry coming out of PEO EIS over the next couple years, but there are others, Gavin said. Earlier this month, the office issued a solicitation for industry feedback on three technical problems. Responses are due May 6.