GENERAL DYNAMICS WINS U.S. ARMY COMMON HARDWARE/SOFTWARE III CONTRACT

3 Jun 03. General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE:GD – News) on Tuesday said it won a U.S. Army contract to provide computers, network hardware equipment, and commercial software to military users worldwide, a deal valued at up to $2bn over 10 years.

The deal calls for General Dynamics C4 Systems, a unit of the Falls Church, Virginia-based company, to provide Army, Marine Corps and Air Force computer users with next-generation workstations, associated hardware and software. Other federal agencies would also be eligible to purchase computer products and services under the contract, it said.

The contract, known as the U.S. Army’s Common Hardware/Software III (CHS-3), will be administered by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) in Huntsville, Alabama. The Army gave General Dynamics an initial $8.3m delivery order for very flat panel displays and printers.

General Dynamics is currently in the ninth year of a 10-year deal as the prime contractor for the Army’s CHS-2 precursor effort, valued at $888m to date. Work on CHS-2 will continue until 2005, General Dynamics said.

The next-generation CHS-3 contract will use commercial off-the-shelf architectures as the foundation for making the Army’s tactical computing platforms more rugged.

Key subcontractors on the deal include Sun Microsystems (NasdaqNM:SUNW – News), Cisco Systems (NasdaqNM:CSCO – News), and DRS Technologies (NYSE:DRS – News), according to the company.