Army Will Need to Recruit A Few Good Geeks

11 2,009

By Sandra I. Erwin

During eight years of war, the Army has circumvented its traditional procurement system and bought untold quantities of high-tech equipment — particularly information and communications technologies — from the commercial sector. As of today, 60 percent of the Army’s IT systems are commercial off-the-shelf, says Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army’s chief information officer.

The problem is that the Army has no in-house logistics support for these COTS systems, and must now figure out how to maintain them.

”How do we adopt a process for sustainment?” Sorenson asks IT industry representatives at a recent conference. The Army needs lots of technicians to help fix things, and it could use a service similar to iFixIt.com, says Sorenson.

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