http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58747,00.html By Noah Shachtman May 08, 2003 WASHINGTON -- The dinner bell hasn't rung yet. But technology companies of every breed are scrambling for a place at the trough. A $9 billion homeland security IT feast is set for the coming fiscal year. And after lean times gnawing on scrawny private-sector contracts, these firms can't wait to get their hands on new government fat. Pre-meal preparations are in full swing this week at the new Washington Convention Center, where the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association has assembled 10,000 military techies and defense contractors for a three-day confab. The best way to shore up the United States' defenses, they've collectively decreed, is to boost communications, increase information gathering and heighten collaboration between military and civil authorities. And in the center's fluorescent-lit exhibit halls, they've laid out hundreds of handsomely priced tools for facilitating all that talk: secure cell phones, Humvee-mounted communications hubs, software for directing ambulances and fire trucks like so many Predator drones. Some of the executives here -- like the waxy, rumpled suits from Boeing and Lockheed Martin -- have long histories of handling the government's business and are looking to expand their ancient, lucrative ties. Others, like Paul Kirchoff, a tanned, crystal pendant-wearing vice president of Austin, Texas, software firm United Devices, are newcomers to the public sector. But this dot-com refugee knows money when he smells it. "There's a sense of urgency in the government space," Kirchoff said, slipping quickly into business jargon. "And an ability to monetarily support your business." Paul Noble, CEO of Imtech, a New Jersey-based company that makes giant video screens, certainly would agree. "Until a year ago, we handled mostly private business -- trading floors, telecom, energy trading," Noble said. "But Wall Street's on hiatus. Telecom is in a terrible funk. Energy trading is much besmirched. Most of what we do today is, loosely, homeland-security focused." His products are now being pitched as ideal displays for homeland security command centers. And with customers like the New York Fire Department and U.S. Strategic Command, Noble said he is expecting his business to triple in the coming year, to somewhere "in the modest eight figures." Many other contractors haven't seen the same windfall -- yet. Federal grants supposedly will enable state and local governments to give out gobs of homeland security cash -- but not until the fall, when the new fiscal year rolls around. "It's been very slow," said Eric Adolphe, whose company, Optimus, makes "command-and-control" software for ambulances and other emergency vehicles. "We've been hearing about the money coming, the money coming. But most jurisdictions haven't seen much money yet. And what they have seen is more nuts and bolts. They have had to buy gloves, oxygen tanks, ambulances and radios. They're not ready for IT yet." Local authorities in Washington, D.C., recently gave Adolphe a $1 million order to equip 600 ambulances with the system. As for the national government, it will take time before the Homeland Security Department -- stitched together in March from 22 different federal agencies -- is ready to spend the $9 billion for homeland security and cyberdefense that the Bush administration has requested. "(Homeland security officials) are trying to get their acts together," said Bruce De Witte, a Northrop Grumman product manager who is pitching a new video surveillance software package. "Potentially, there's a lot of budget, but they don't know where to spend it." Making spending suggestions is what the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association was designed to do. Headed by a retired vice admiral, the organization was "formed after World War II to get the whole military-industrial complex going," spokesperson Tobey Jackson said. These days, that's done by bringing top operators from the boardroom and from the Pentagon to conferences like this one, blandly named TechNet International 2003. All sides are sure that communications, surveillance and information technologies are the keys to preventing future terror attacks. The feeling has only been heightened since Saddam Hussein's relatively easy defeat in the recent war in Iraq. "We used the same weapons platforms as we did in Desert Storm," noted Lt. Gen. Harry Raduege Jr., who leads the Defense Information Systems Agency. But thanks to enhanced communications systems, "we used them much more effectively." For example, the U.S. military's use of wideband satellite communications increased by more than 3,000 percent during the second Gulf War compared to the first, Raduege said. Iridium satellite phone usage shot up 4,800 percent since Sept. 11. Traffic on the Pentagon's data networks increased by 557 to 869 percent during a similar period. In the past, the different military services barely spoke to one another. During the recent conflict in Iraq, they were more tightly coordinated than ever before. The trend will only continue in the future: Over the next five years, according to Defense Department projections, the military will spend $28 billion on "leveraging information technology." Now the Pentagon would like to bring so-called "first responders" -- emergency medical technicians, firefighters, police and the like -- into the loop, said Gen. Paul Kern, head of U.S. Army Materiel Command, in his opening address at TechNet. But these groups need the right equipment to be able to chat with each other more effectively, Kern added. It's an order the gear makers in his audience are all too happy to fulfill. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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