10 Aug 04. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC – News) has named its team of partner companies for the U.S. Air Force Network Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) program.

NETCENTS is a five-year, $9-billion, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity program that will provide the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, and other federal government agencies with information technology solutions and services, including network engineering; software development; integration; information storage and management; security and telephone services; and voice, video, and data communications products.

The Northrop Grumman-led team includes 10 large partners and 24 small business partners to meet program requirements in both the scope of the contract and its worldwide applicability. Northrop Grumman’s 10 large partners include: Computer Sciences Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.; SAIC, San Diego, Calif.; BearingPoint Inc. and RS Information Systems, Inc., McLean, Va.; Siemens AG, Munich, Germany; T-Systems, Frankfurt, Germany; Verizon Communications and AT&T, New York, N.Y.; Dell Inc., Round Rock, Texas; and SI International, Inc., Reston, Va.

“Northrop Grumman and our industry partners can provide unmatched global reach and depth of capabilities, which translates into lower risk and cost for the Air Force,” said Kent Schneider, president of the Defense Enterprise Solutions business unit of Northrop Grumman’s Information Technology (IT) sector. “We understand the importance of this program to the Air Force mission, particularly at a time when improvements in information sharing made possible by networking have the potential to create dramatic improvements in services, and joint and coalition war-fighting capabilities. Our team brings proven expertise with the Air Force’s Unified Local Area Network, and the Air Force Combat Information Transport program, in addition to the vast experience provided by our teammates who offer robust capability across the spectrum of NETCENTS requirements.”

The Air Force is scheduled to award the NETCENTS contract in September 2004.