Posted on 12/08/2006 6:45:43 AM PST by Srirangan
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and partner Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) [NYSE: SAI], acting as the Lead Systems Integrator for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, today announced the selection of IBM Corporation's Global Business Systems division of Bethesda, Md., as the provider of Logistics Data Management Service (LDMS) for FCS. LDMS is the FCS sustainment and supportability data management service that will be tightly integrated with the Army's Logistics Enterprise.
"LDMS will provide a network-enabled, performance-based logistics solution for the U.S. Army that will reduce the logistics footprint, increase operational availability and significantly lower life-cycle costs for FCS Brigade Combat Teams," said Dennis Muilenburg, vice president-general manager of Boeing Combat Systems and FCS program manager. "IBM has demonstrated that it is uniquely qualified to provide these capabilities for our nation's soldiers and will be a tremendous addition to the FCS best-of-industry One Team."
The LDMS will provide unprecedented access to complete life-cycle data for FCS logistics support, as well as configuration management, data analysis, and forecasting and planning. It will enable the collection, reporting and collaboration of logistics data on customer demands received from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Standard Army Management Information Systems and Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. LDMS also will provide the status and location of national-level assets of FCS spares and repair parts from DoD, Army and partner systems.
"Who is we? Are you saying that there's something "special" about the PC division of IBM in that it was less greedy and less dishonest?"
I'm saying America has opened the door and the best we have in many areas is headed out.
Nothing specific about IBM PC division. People are greedy by nature and unless they have a good moral and ethical base bad things happen. Not distrustful of big business. IMO American businesses are a great deal less dishonest and abusive than those of many other cultures. In many parts of the world it is absolutely required to bribe local officials in order to do business. Just another cost of doing business.
Mmmm. But we're talking about an American business operating in America here. What do you have against IBM?
The PC Division had a great product, but the Division was a money loser, unwilling to operate the way Dell and HP (JIT manufacturing) do. So you sell off a money loser to someone else who thinks he can make it profitable.
Intel's latest generation of chips was designed in Israel. AMD makes most of its chips in Germany.
The military will probably require them to do it onshore but IBM is so "globalized" that leaks and spying are inevitable.
Any software written for the military will be under strict control, requiring security clearances. If the software itself is considered classified, then the control gets, well, quite anal retentive, with separate networks, controlled access to those with clearances and need to know, no personal computing devices allowed (including USB sticks, iPods and cell phones), hard drives get put in the safe when you're not there, and you even need to get an official courier to take a CD next door. Violate any of these, even by accident, and you risk getting fired (and some are automatic-firing offenses).
There's always the risk of a spy, no matter where, but the military won't casually let a foreigner work on one of its projects. In fact, the job ads from IBM will say "Must be an American citizen and capable of receiving a DoD security clearance."
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