Navy awards HP another bridge contract on the way to NGEN

The Navy awarded Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services (HPES), Herndon, VA, a $680 million modification to a previously awarded continuity of services contract (CoSC) for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). The CoSC is designed as a bridge between the existing NMCI and the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) to come.

The modification raises the contract ceiling from $4.9 billion to $5.6 billion, and adds one option that will extend the period of performance two months, from April 2014 to June 2014. This option will only be exercised if the government has not fully transitioned the services. 

The NMCI services are currently provided under the CoSC, which was awarded to HPES in order to continue providing NMCI information technology services following the expiration of the original NMCI contract. The CoSC network operation services currently expire in April 2014, the hardware purchase expires July 2015 and the asset usage services expire in December 2014. 

The CoSC ensures that the scope of NMCI IT services and performance levels delivered are sustained until NGEN is satisfactorily providing the replacement services.  This is a sole-source contract with HPES being the owner/operator of the NMCI network and the only source that can satisfy the Navy's requirement for continuity of IT service. 

That is one of the major differences between NMCI and NGEN, in that the Navy will own the network instead of a vendor.

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, Calif., is the contracting activity.