The year 2006 will likely be remembered as a time when the soaring cost of the conflict in Iraq forced agencies to tighten their budgets. It was also a year in which the Homeland Security Department awarded the first phase of its multibillion-dollar border protection SBInet contract and small and midsize companies expressed concerns about the Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract.
War in Iraq affects IT at home “What I’ve seen is a slowdown in terms of new contracts, new task orders and new work,” said Robert Nabors, director of Defense Department and Army programs at EDS.
Budget considerations and a more structured procurement process were evident during the fiscal year-end buying period in September. “There isn’t the year-end frenzy anymore,” said Michelina LaForgia, director of the Army Small Computer Program at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
In Congress’ final week before the midterm elections, the House and Senate passed a final version of the fiscal 2007 Defense Appropriations bill, totaling $436.5 billion. The bill, which sets spending limits for the military, includes a $70 billion bridge fund for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The lawmakers cut funding for several information technology and modernization programs and shifted that money to support systems already in use.
Technology programs in particular received less money than the Bush administration had requested. The effect will be significant delays in the delivery of integrated technology and business systems, said Kevin Carroll, who leads the Army’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems.
Existing systems will remain in use longer, and new equipment and services will be delayed, Carroll said.
BlackBerry panic This year began with the threatened loss of one of government’s most ubiquitous telecommunications tools, the Research in Motion BlackBerry handheld device. A long-standing patent infringement suit pitted RIM against NTP, which claimed its patents created the device.
When the Supreme Court refused in January to hear RIM’s appeal of a lower court ruling in NTP’s favor, NTP sought a court injunction to shut down BlackBerry service in the United States.
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