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www.oxleygroup.com
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13 Oct 17. Bids in for Morpheus BMS. Bids for the battle management segment of the UK’s Morpheus system are due in on October 18th. A number of companies have shown interest including Systematic, whose Sitaware product must be the one to beat given the company’s recent success in fielding Sitaware to the US forces under a ground-breaking contract, the largest in the Company’s history. In February 2017, U.S. Army Mission Command announced the award of a multi-million dollar contract to Systematic Inc. for its Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) C4I product, SitaWare.
The U.S. Army has selected Systematic Inc. as a new supplier of IT solutions to the US military. With the SitaWare solution, the U.S. Army gets a command and control system that provides the warfighter with greater situational awareness at all levels of command, as well as easier cooperation with other forces and greater security.
Systematic Inc. President and retired U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres is excited to bring the capability to the Army.
“SitaWare meets most of the Army’s C4I requirements straight out-of-the-box,” said Torres.
In addition, he highlighted SitaWare’s open architecture which allows for integration with legacy and third party systems.
“It also has built-in support for international information exchange standards providing unmatched interoperability with international allies and intra-operability between U.S. forces,” Torres said.
“With this award, SitaWare will become a key component of the Army Common Operating Environment, and Systematic will work with Mission Command and industry partners to develop a common framework to enhance intra-operability between U.S. and Coalition Partners.”
Australia is also reported to be looking at Sitaware for its BMS requirements. A down-select is expected in March 2018.
11 Oct 17. The US Army is acquiring and modernizing vehicle-mounted consolidated ruggedized computer systems and force-tracking software designed to help soldiers on the move access combat-relevant information from vehicles and in dismounted operations.
The technology, called a Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFoCS), synthesizes hardware components as well as software, sensors and communications equipment to provide a more seamless soldier computing experience. The new computers are part of an accelerated fielding of a next-generation force tracking software called Joint Battle Command – Platform (JBC-P). The technology uses moving digital maps with colored graphic icons showing friendly and enemy force locations, expedites chat functions and allows access to combat-relevant intelligence information. Building upon the now-fielded initial version of MFoCS, the Army is now seeking to leverage faster processing speeds and improved touch screen technology for an MFoCS Increment 2 upgrade.
Leonardo DRS (an Italian-owned defense firm) has previously received at least $53m in orders for the computers. DRS, the incumbent manufacturer, is now developing initial models of its MFoCS Block Two for delivery to the Army as part of a bid to compete for a new production deal. Army program managers have said that the vision of MFoCS is to use a single tactical computer to run multiple applications. Army statements explain that there are three building blocks to MFoCS; the basic configuration is a tablet using a 12, 15 or 17-inch display.The tablets are ruggedized and operate on a 25-foot cable so soldiers inside a vehicle can pass the display around or even detach it and take it outside. DRS’ MFoCS 2 offering incorporates a multi-touch display screen, developers explained.
“What the user will experience is an increasingly intuitive user interface which we call multi-touch functionality able to expand or shrink an image,” said Bill Guyan, vice president of business development, Leonardo DRS. “This will be very help