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back to article US Department of Defense to sling an estimated $3.17bn at Microsoft resellers

The US Department of Defense has signed up for an estimated $3.17bn worth of Microsoft software via a classic procurement framework. The six lucky Microsoft resellers include Dell Federal Systems, Insight Enterprises and SHI, according to the DoD's official line-up. 895 vendors pitched for the cash, but only six made the cut …

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  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "this agreement will not obligate funds at the time of award"

    Well that would be a bit brain-dead on the part of the DOD. Obviously the funds will be paid out in return for actual acquisitions, otherwise there is a very large window for error, honest or no.

    Still, some champagne will obviously be opened in the marketing departments of the six companies, because hey, that counts for this year's bonus !

    4 0 Reply
  2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    So this is the reason Win 10 updates occur when you least expect them...

    ...'cos otherwise the enemy would attack when everyone at the DoD was busy with Patch Tuesday.

    6 1 Reply
  3. Dan 55 Silver badge

    $3.17bn

    And it still BSODs just like Windows 10 Home.

    4 3 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder...

    If the DoD's "Enterprise Edition" OS will show established connections to Candy Crush in netstat scans as well?

    0 1 Reply
  5. Korev Silver badge

    Resellers?

    Why are they using resellers? Surely an organisation the size of the DoD gains nothing from them and could save money by negotiating direct?

    1 0 Reply
  6. Erik4872

    Trying to lock in licensing?

    I'm wondering if Microsoft will make exceptions for governments, but my guess is that DoD wants to get their deal done now to ensure they get the last perpetual versions of Windows, Office and the servers/applications.

    Microsoft isn't showing any signs of slowing down on the whole Windows as a Service thing, and setting Office 2019's EOL date the same as Office 2016's is a major clue that they're not going to be rolling standalone versions of these products very soon.

    0 0 Reply
  7. IGnatius T Foobar !

    For $3,170,000,000 they could develop everything they need in-house and have money left over.

    1 1 Reply
  8. DerekCurrie
    Megaphone

    #MyStupidGovernment In Action

    I hate my tag #MyStupidGovernment. But it's constantly being proven. That my government touches Microsoft Windows for any reason, other than figuring out hacks they can use on sucker governments using the crap, is beyond comprehension. Windows WAS hacked within my government for decades. Windows IS being hacked within my government as I type. Windows WILL be hacked within my government every day for years to come.

    When Will You Learn?!

    Hint: Follow the advice of 'IGnatius T Foobar !' above and make your own software. Here in the Dark Age of Computing, whatever you create is going to have plentiful security flaws. But at least it will benefit from 'Security Through Obscurity' for a brief period of time.

    Bigger Hint: My country is required to embark upon an open source OS project using a new open source programming language that never, ever allows memory management errors, the single most massive source of security flaws. No more buffer overruns. It's a start. Then we can move on to secondary sources of programming hell.

    0 1 Reply

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