EDS-LED ATLAS CONSORTIUM CONFIRMED AS PREFERRED BIDDER FOR FIRST INCREMENT OF UK DII REQUIREMENT

02 Mar 05. The EDS-led Atlas consortium has been selected as preferred bidder to supply Increment One of the UK’s Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) requirement. EDS partners in Atlas are Fujitsu Ltd., General Dynamics
Corp., LogicaCMG, and Cogent Defence and Security Networks, a unit of EADS. In addition to working with EDS on the British contract, General Dynamics is also a subcontractor on EDS’s four-year-old, U.S. Navy computer-modernization contract and the Prime Contractor for the U.K.’s BOWMAN system, a key component in the bearer system required for the success of DII.

DII provides computer outsourcing, training and support services for the British MoD under a provisional 2 year £2.3bn Increment One contract of three. The MoD will review the progress of the Atlas consortium’s progress and performance on Increment I in the Second Quarter of 06. Increment I will run from now until 1st Quarter 07, with contract signing expected in late March of this year. Increment II will run from April 07 until March 08 and Increment III from March 08 until 1st Quarter 09.

The losing RADII consortium led by Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) and BT Group PLC and Thales Defence Information Systems will be able to bid for the Second and Third Increments if the Atlas Consortium work does not come up to the required MoD standards or indeed is in the wings if the MoD does not formalise a contract with Atlas for Increment I, which appears unlikely. However an MoD spokesman said that the work would be reviewed on a pay-per-performance basis in the run up to a review and a change of contractor would only be required if performance was deemed to be below these strict requirements.

DII, worth 4bn in total, is the largest outsourcing proposal ever issued by the U.K. MoD. The DII ‘Current’ process has already commenced in a number of areas being some Royal Navy ships and shore installations and the recently-refurbished MoD Main Building, where staff are undergoing training requirements to bring them up to the required EU standard for IT knowledge; this will run into the Convergence Phase where Legacy Systems will be replaced. The assessment phase for Increments I &II has already begun. We might suggest that the first job for Atlas would be to mend the microphone in the security area of the Main Building where questions asked by staff with regard to security issues are impossible to hear or indeed answer!

Lord Bach, Minister for Defence Procurement, said, “This group of companies have
international experience of delivery of first class IT systems and we look
forward to working in partnership with them over the coming years. We have conducted a rigorous competition and are confident that provision of an effective, efficient and Value for Money service, vital to the modernisation of Defence, has begun today.”

Graham Lay, Managing Director of EDS Defence and the senior responsible
industry executive for the ATLAS Consortium, said: “We are proud to have
been selected as preferred bidder for DII(F), which is one of the most
challenging, demanding and exciting IT infrastructure projects ever
undertaken anywhere in the world. Recognising the complexity and scale of the task, the members of the ATLAS Consortium came together at an early juncture and have worked together for over two years in a partnership that is unprecedented in the IT industry. The composition of the ATLAS team has been tailored to meet the rigorous requirements and challenges presented by the DII (F) project, namely: no single point of failure; back office to battle space capabilities;
multi-level security; and large-scale infrastructure deployments.”

Jim McKenna, Chief Operating Officer, LogicaCMG and member of the ATLAS
Joint Steering Board said, “Today’s announcement is a reflection of
LogicaCMG’s reputation for delivering mission-critical systems which ar