Sunday, April 28, 2024
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
We mentioned it in this morning's INSIDER, but in case you missed it, DefenseNews ran a story today about the Pentagon's reshuffling of its information technology efforts:
The Pentagon's top high-tech directorate will officially close its doors next March, according to a Defense Department memo that describes how its surviving functions and personnel will be split among four other DoD entities.
Robert Rangel, a senior aide to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has tapped Gen. James Cartwright, Joint Staff vice chairman, and Christine Fox, director of DoD's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, with overseeing a process that will culminate with the shuttering of the Pentagon's Networks and Information Integration (NII) directorate on March 31, 2011.
Closing NII is part of Gates' push to eliminate $101 billion in unnecessary organizations and costs and transfer those savings to weapon programs over five years. He also wants to shutter U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), the Pentagon's Business Transformation Agency and the Joint Staff's Command, Control, Communications, & Computer Systems (J6) directorate. The Business Transformation Agency and the networks and information shop both are part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Sound familiar? That's because InsideDefense.com reported it a couple weeks ago:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates intends to disestablish the major Pentagon offices that handle computer networks by transferring many of their functions to the Defense Information Systems Agency and other organizations, according to a recent memo issued as part of Gates' Pentagon efficiency initiative.
The Sept. 1 memo tasks the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of the cost assessment and program evaluation (CAPE) shop with leading the working group that develops the implementation plan to disestablish the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration (NII) and the Joint Staff's J6 function, both of which deal with enterprise information technology and hardware issues.