IBM Scores Net-centric Warfare Deal

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — IBM chips and networking subsystems will become the basis for various Honeywell International "net-centric warfare" projects for the Defense Department under a 10-year contract between IBM Corp.'s Engineering and Technology Services Group and Honeywell's Defense and Space Electronic Systems Group.

The contract covers design and development services, as well as intellectual-property licenses to such key IBM architectures as the PowerPC.

Robert Blackburn, vice president of the aerospace and defense segment of IBM's engineering and services group, called the Honeywell pact "the single most significant deal we've done, with the potential to generate several hundreds of millions of dollars." While the IBM defense segment has worked with several prime contractors, Blackburn said that "something more profound is going on here. This pretty much puts Honeywell's defense and space group out of direct design engineering. We are their electronics engineering shop going forward."

IBM is no stranger to the host of new Defense Department programs lumped under the rubric of net-centric warfare. In September, IBM joined with more than two dozen other companies to form the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium, which will work to ensure that future DOD and intelligence-community information programs interoperate easily.

Access to expertise