Defense Department hires HP

The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency, a combat support agency of the Department of Defense that handles IT and communications functions, has awarded two eight-year utility-computing contracts to Hewlett-Packard. These contracts, which have a ceiling of $440 million, give HP the task of building computer infrastructures for 17 of DISA's locations around the world.

One of the contracts, capped at $250 million, involves the construction of HP-UX environments; the other is a $190 million contract for Microsoft's Windows, Red Hat's Enterprise Linux and Novell's SUSE Linux operating systems. HP's own Integrity and ProLiant servers will be used. Despite this partnership with the U.S. government, HP nevertheless recently underwent congressional hearings regarding its information leak scandal.

[MrNougat]

Wha ... ?

Isn't HP under investigation for using questionable methods to gather information about people? Oh now I understand ...

[Lindy01]

Ahhh the goverment spending money

wisely again. Hey maybe they should consolidate those platforms to say 2......Instead of 4. Unix/Linux or Unix/Windows...or Linix/Windows.

Sorry I dont like Novell.

[macrouser]

How is this relevant?

The reporter fails to make a connection between this story and HP's boardroom troubles. Government IT spending decisions and congressional hearings on ethics and policy violations are and should be independent, unless the hearing is due to the outcome of a spending decision. I hope that, just because CNet reporters were targeted by the HP people involved, that News.com will not wage a vendetta against HP in the months to come, or try to link all news about HP to the boardroom issue.


Disclaimer: I have no connection with, or shares of HP.