Latest updates[?]: Finmeccanica's DRS Laurel (#B-410330.1) and Obamacare's infamous implementer CGI Federal (#B-410330.2) both filed
bid protests with GAO over their exclusion from CANES. The same sort of behavior has been seen on other large IT contracts, like ITES-II.One option (one
we've seen before) is for the government to add the protesting firms to the list, in order to prevent contract stop-work while everyone waits for a GAO decision. Multiple-award contracts don't compel the government to award much of anything to winning firms, so it's a low-cost concession. This is indeed
what was decided on January 8, with CGI Federal Inc and DRS Technologies added to the list of available vendors.
The US Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program is designed to streamline and update shipboard networks to improve interoperability across the fleet. It will replace 5 shipboard legacy network programs to provide the common computing environment on board for command, control, intelligence and logistics. The primary goal of the CANES program is to build a secure shipboard network required for naval and joint operations, which is much easier when you consolidate and reduce the number of shipboard networks. That consolidation can also lower costs and maintenance requirements and reduce training needs, if good choices are made. The intent is to build it as an Infrastructure and Platform as a Service (IaaS / PaaS) and field it on a rolling 4-year hardware baseline and a 2-year software baseline.
In 2010, the US Navy awarded 2 contracts, with a potential value of $1.7 billion, for the design and development of the CANES common computing environment. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are competing, and a single prime contractor was expected to be picked in 2011. It took until early 2012, but Northrop Grumman won. By 2014, however, a multi-year, multi-vendor contract was in place…