Contract to support and upgrade 150,000 armed forces terminals likely to be worth £300m a year
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is preparing to put out a tender for a multimillion pound IT modernisation project which will give the armed forces faster access to vital information.
The Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) project will provide the armed forces with "information any time, any place, anywhere", according to David Palmer, assistant director at the Defence Communications Services Agency.
Palmer is responsible for overseeing the integration of the armed forces" legacy systems into DII. Due to be operational by 2008, DII will give electronic access to information rated "Top Secret" for the first time.
Existing systems only give people access to "Secret" level information, with "Top Secret" data held on paper only. The contract will support and upgrade 150,000 terminals at 2,000 sites, and is likely to be worth around £300m a year.