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U.S. Navy Will Torpedo Proprietary Systems

U.S. Navy Will Torpedo Proprietary Systems

by , 4:00 PM EDT, March 13th, 2008

After years of embracing Microsoft and other proprietary systems, The U.S. Navy has announced that that era must come to an end, according to Federal Computer Week. The benefits to Apple are as yet unknown.

In front of a Navy IT audience last week, Navy Vice Admiral Mark Edwards made the announcement. "The days of proprietary technology must come to an end," he said. "We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data."

The Admiral said that the Navy was falling behind in technology and spending too much money in the process.

"We can’t accept the increasing costs of maintaining our present-day capabilities," Adm. Edwards said. “In the civilian marketplace, it’s just the opposite. Some private-sector concerns are cutting their costs by 90 percent while expanding their performance."

Adm. Edwards wants to move to an open network architecture and make data easier to migrate. "Above all, we must break the stovepipes of data so that we can share information across domains," he added.

The Admiral compared the situation to the Cold War with the Soviet Union. "Because we put them in a position of always having to catch up, the mere threat of the Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI] crippled the Soviet ability to continue the arms race and enabled our side to dictate terms. If we remain behind in technology, a future adversary will eventually bring terms to us."

For years, the U.S. Navy adamantly ignored Apple products based on open standards in OS technologies, databases and networking and went one hundred percent Microsoft, believing that a partnership with Microsoft was the way to go. Now, the costs and technology price, according the Admiral, have been too much to bear.

However, the benefit to Apple, which seeks to increase its Federal sales substantially, it not clear. While the UNIX core of Mac OS X, Darwin, is 100 percent open source, other technologies in Mac OS X that give Apple a competitive advantage will likely remain closely held. In situations like this, Linux is almost always the winner. Even so, the process of turning away from highly proprietary systems may open the door for Apple, just a little, when before it was firmly shut.

Observer Comments

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Close Name:Guest
Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:33 pm Subject:

That's a good start - I work on an Army base that considers Apple to be the enemy, even going so far as to think anything done by an Apple computer to be suspect. If this turns out to the good of Apple, I may just have to go job-seeking on my nearest Navy base!


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Close Name:demjones Posts: 12 Joined: 25 Jun 2001
Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:38 pm Subject: We'll see...

In order to head in this direction, the Navy will need to dump or massively alter NMCI, which is primarily based on the Windows platform. This would be a huge "cultural" shift, although I've seen a growing number of folks using LINUX and Macs at the Navy lab where I work.

I have yet to come up with a perverted acronym for NMCI...perhaps "No More Communications or Internet"?


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:46 pm Subject: The way of the battleships

If Mac OS X is 100 percent Open Source, then show me where I can download ALL of the source code without signing any agreement. I'm sorry to disappoint you but Apple is a proprietary company, they sell proprietary products.

This seems to be a trend in government. Not just ours either. I don't expect Steve Jobs to change his ways anytime soon, Apple is making too much money.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:27 pm Subject: NMCI Gone

NMCI = Non Mission Capable Internet. That contract is up next year and that is why the Navy is starting to look around.


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Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:00 pm Subject: Re: The way of the battleships

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
If Mac OS X is 100 percent Open Source, then show me where I can download ALL of the source code without signing any agreement. I'm sorry to disappoint you but Apple is a proprietary company, they sell proprietary products.

This seems to be a trend in government. Not just ours either. I don't expect Steve Jobs to change his ways anytime soon, Apple is making too much money.


It doesn't say that OS X is 100% open source. It says that the CORE of OS X (Darwin) is 100% open source, which is true.

You can get it here.


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Close Name:daishin Posts: 11 Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:18 pm Subject: NMCI

NMCI = Nevermore Microsoft Cashing In


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:38 am Subject: NMCI

NMCI is the worst system I have ever used. It very often takes me more than 10 minutes to log in and then another 5 minutes waiting for outlook to open. A business in the private sector would never accept such performance but in the Navy, this is normal.

I really don't expect the Navy to incorporate Apple anytime soon, but one can always hope. There are so many programs that we use in the Navy that would have to be overhauled. That would be good though, most of them could use a little updating.


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Close Name:Guest
Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:55 pm Subject: More acronyms...

Navy Must Control Information

Never Mind Cost, Implement!

Navy's Microsoft Cash Injection


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:36 pm Subject: Acronyms

They're great...even if what they describe is a colossal waste of the taxpayer's money.


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Close Name:Guest
Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:58 am Subject: NMCI = _____

No More Computer Interface
Not My Crappy Idea

We also use NMCI, pronounced "nimkee", as a common cuss word:
"Dude, you're system is nimkeed."
"That's just a bunch of nimkee."

Things got better after our tech refresh, but that was 2.5 years late. We got "following edge" technology when it was delivered in 2002, 5.5 years later it was glacial. Of course, NMCI didn't seem bothered by the fact that we were supposed to receive the new equipment at the 3 year mark...


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Mar 27, 2008 6:16 pm Subject: NMCI

"Not my crazy idea"


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