Well that was quick: The State Department has demanded that new blueprints for a fully 3-D-printed gun be taken offline just a week after they were posted. The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance is forcing outspoken Second Amendment crusader Cody Wilson to remove the downloadable 3-D printer files from Defcad.org under expert laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

“Until the Department provides Defense Distributed with final [commodity jurisdiction] determinations, Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled,” reads a State Department order” (embedded at the bottom of this post).

The defiant gun developer isn’t going to fight the government in a blaze of glory, however. “We have to comply,” he told Forbes. It’s not exactly an empty surrender. The blueprints have already been downloaded 100,000 times and are being held by fellow digital renegade Kim Dotcom in his offshore New Zealand servers. For further insurance, the files have also been uploaded to the popular file-sharing network, the Pirate Bay (we can feel our anarchist readers getting goosebumps right now).

Just to make sure he’s an equal-opportunity offender, Wilson argues his activities are legit, because ITAR doesn’t apply to information sold in a library, and conveniently has his being sold in an undisclosed Austin, Texas, bookstore.

According to Forbes’ Andy Greenberg, Wilson sees parallels between his strife and the governments abandoned attempts at censoring military-grade encryption software. In the 1990s inventor Phil Zimmermann released software, PGP, so difficult to crack that it could have permitted malicious actors from hiding information from law enforcement. Wilson believes public pressure ultimately convinced the government to back off of Zimmermann.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the government has any actual power to prevent the propagation of 3-D gun blueprints.

State Dept Defense Distributed Letter (Redacted)

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Companies like Google, BlackBerry, Earthlink, Red Hat, and others in the tech community, have been piling pressure on the U.S. government to take a stronger stand against companies that file patent suits but don’t actually make any products themselves — known formally as “patent assertion entities” but more commonly as patent trolls and patent privateers (a term favored by Google). Now someone in government is responding. Today, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is expected to announce legislation that looks to snuff out patent suits brought by these companies in their early stages, by sending the suits to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for vetting before they hit the courts.

This could not only help snuff out bogus suits, but it could also highlight which patents may be bogus as well, creating a framework for preventing their use in subsequent suits.

Patent trolling is a lucrative business, and they are even costlier when including extra business like legal costs: in a recent document submitted to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, Google, BlackBerry, Earthlink and Red Hat estimated that patents abused for financial gain cost U.S. companies alone nearly $30 billion in 2011, “and $80 billion when accounting for all costs — direct and indirect.” The average patent settlement reached by PEEs can cost a small or medium company $1.33 million, while an in-court defense would cost the same company an average of $1.75 million per case.

Senator Schumer’s bill will address exactly that latter aspect of the issue, around the prosecution system. The announcement was made while Schumer was in his home state of New York, and it will get introduced formally next week, when Congress is comes back in session starting May 6.

In a phone interview with TechCrunch, Senator Schumer says the impetus for the bill came from feedback he was getting from the tech community “from one end to the other”:

“From large companies like Google to the smaller startups, this is one of the major barriers to business across the country,” he said. “Fred Wilson alerted me to how it especially hurts startups as well. Several small companies that have been put out of business. When asked by people about what I can do to help the tech industry, the top two things they ask me about is immigration reform and this. I’m working on both.”

What’s interesting is that the bill proposes a new process by which all patent cases will get vetted by the USPTO — not just the “extortion” (his word) brought by trolls. “This will apple to all patent cases, but if you have a legitimate case it will go forward in a month. It just eliminates all the frivolous suits. We think it’s the best solution.”

There are other solutions being suggested for how to deal with the overrun tech patent lawsuit situation. Another suggestion has been for the losers in the cases to cover legal costs for both parties. The idea is that this would be a deterrent for those looking just for a financial return, but Schumer said he believes this would get quashed by the trial lawyer lobby.

“Even if you have to pick up the court costs, you might still be scared into settling because it could take years before a court makes a determination,” he noted. “We would have it before it goes to court and discovery stage.”

This bill is a variation on another piece of legislation that Schumer pushed through Congress successfully in 2011. That update, called the Schumer-Kyl program, was to the America Invents Act and specifically concerned patents in the financial services industry. So far the USPTO has examined some 20 patent cases as part of that patent review program.

But tech patent trolling is a much bigger issue in terms of numbers, says Schumer. Some 62% of patents asserted by trolls from 1990-2010 were software patents; 75% were in computer and communications technology. The case brought by Lodsys against dozens of app developers is typical of how many of these suits run, it appears: some 82% of companies targeted by trolls have annual revenues of less than $100 million.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook ads provider SocialWire today announced that it has been accepted into the Preferred Marketing Developer program and awarded the Apps badge.

SocialWire provides a platform for advertisers to run self-serve or managed campaigns. It also offers an SDK to help companies integrate with Facebook Open Graph so that their websites are optimized for Facebook and more Sponsored Stories and targeting options are available to them. It’s for this that SocialWire received the Apps badge and gained entry to the PMD program. SocialWire CRO Bob Buch tells us the company is building a few more ads-related features and will be applying for the Ads badge soon.

BlackBerry has now issued a statement confirming that its relationship is still on with the Department of Defense — for its sake hopefully closing the loop on the story that started with reports that the DoD would be dumping its deal with the troubled Canadian handset maker, once a mainstay of business users, who are now migrating to Apple and Android devices. BlackBerry says that its devices and services are in the so-called Security Requirement Guide approval state right now, as are others, and BlackBerry will be the first to come out of it.

BlackBerry says that it’s getting approval for BB10 devices, the PlayBook and the on-device enterprise services that it runs on these, with that expected to come in early April.

From a BlackBerry spokesperson:

Our work with the U.S. Department of Defense is going well and the U.S. Department of Defense is moving forward with testing of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 and the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. We are currently working with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and anticipate Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) and Security Requirement Guide (SRG) approval for the BlackBerry Device Service, BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry PlayBook by early April. BlackBerry was the first to go through the new SRG process by the Defense Department and will be the first to successfully come out of it.

BlackBerry is in a critical position right now where each example of a key enterprise customer dumping the company’s devices is like another thorn in its side, or a straw on its back. The report that its position at the organization was getting replaced by some 650,000 Apple devices would have been a catalysing example of how far it had fallen from its incumbent position as the king of enterprise mobility.

Some believe that while BlackBerry are still making the list for approved devices, when it comes to user choice, many are opting for other devices like Android handsets and iPhones — an opportunity that companies like Samsung and Apple are now trying to seize.

The DoD had already denied the original report, but what BlackBerry is doing is spelling out that not only will the order include its new range of BB10 handsets but also its ailing tablets as well as its Device Service, putting on a brave face to fight the next battle of the smartphone war.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The rise in cybercrime, malware and other malicious hacking is seeing a subsequent rise in the fortunes of tech startups that are setting out to fight it. Today, cybercrime solution specialist Endgame announced that it has raised $23 million in a Series B round of equity finance. It will partly use the proceeds to take its product — originally developed for and deployed with government customers — to a wider commercial market.

This round was led by Paladin Capital, a private equity firm, with participation also from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and TechOperators. The funding takes the total invested in Endgame to date to $52 million after a $29 million round in 2010, which had been the company’s first venture backing.

As part of the deal, Endgame is also getting an impressive new member on its board: Lt. Gen. (Ret) Kenneth A. Minihan, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency, who is now an MD at Paladin. As background on Paladin, the firm emaphasises investments in the IT sector that pertain to the government, cybersecurity and related areas. (As a measure of that, its first-ever fund, in 2001, was the $235-million “Homeland Security Fund.”)

As you would imagine from a company focused on government and intelligence clients, Endgame’s site is fairly spare in terms of information about current clients and products. It looks like the crux of its service is its Cyber Operations Platform, an integrated dashboard that delivers a real time ability to monitor data points on a network for suspicious activity. It also lets users mine offline data to help increase enforcement.

New board memeber Minihan is bullish on the role that companies like Endgame are already playing in federal organizations today, and the message here seems to be “if it’s good enough for the CIA, well then it’s good enough for your business.”

“The cyber domain will be increasingly important across all dimensions of national power – military, economic, and informational,” he said in a statement. “Endgame’s revolutionary technology allows its customers to use intelligence seamlessly to gain situational awareness and support their end-to-end network operations.”

Minihan is not Endgame’s only tie into the corridors of power: its new CTO, Matt Georgy, joined Endgame “after a decorated career as a senior executive at the Department of Defense”. And Endgame’s new Chairman, Christopher Darby, is the current President and CEO of In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment firm that works with the CIA and other government intelligence organizations.

Other recent new appointments include Nathaniel Fick as CEO in November, replacing founder Chris Rouland (who stays on as a board member) and Niloofar Howe, CSO.

Full release below.

Endgame, Inc. Raises $23M Series B Round of Equity Financing

Herndon, VA — Endgame, Inc., a leading provider of battle-tested cyber security solutions, announced today that it has closed a $23 million Series B equity financing to fund growth in its existing federal customer base as well as expansion into the commercial market.

The Series B is led by new investor Paladin Capital Group, a multi-stage private equity firm providing capital and strategic guidance to growing companies, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and TechOperators. Lt. Gen. (Ret) Kenneth A. Minihan, former Director of the National Security Agency and Managing Director at Paladin, will join the Endgame Board of Directors.

“The cyber domain will be increasingly important across all dimensions of national power – military, economic, and informational,” said Lt. General Minihan. “Endgame’s revolutionary technology allows its customers to use intelligence seamlessly to gain situational awareness and support their end-to-end network operations.”

As part of its expansion, Endgame has recruited several new executives to the company’s management team, including: Nathaniel Fick, who joined as CEO in November, replacing Chris Rouland who remains a Founder and board member of the company; Niloofar Howe, who joined as Chief Strategy Officer to lead the company’s efforts in market and product strategy, as well as business and corporate development; and Matt Georgy, who joined Endgame as CTO after a decorated career as a senior executive at the Department of Defense supporting all aspects of computer network operations. Endgame’s new Chairman of the Board, Christopher Darby, has deep expertise in the intelligence space as the current President and CEO of In-Q-Tel, the independent strategic investment firm supporting the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

“The cyber needs of federal and commercial entities are converging as states look beyond targeting other states to target private companies, and national security thinking must increasingly account for private infrastructure,” said Nate Fick, CEO of Endgame. “I’m excited about leveraging the solutions and technology that our mission partners depend on to help businesses with comprehensive command and control of their network operations.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

So I was chatting with my dad yesterday. We had a long drive home after the Department of Homeland Security seized and impounded my boat. The mood was somber.

We were talking about how awful America has become. We are a nation that has been split into groups that absolutely hate each other. Debt is rising, taxes are rising and freedom is being demolished. Meanwhile our elected officials are doing little more than stoking the drama fire while fiddling with the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Whatever your politics, you must see it too. Just pick a political story at random and read the comments. There is no logic or reason on either side, only hypocrisy and hate.

I’m a creature of startups. For example, I don’t want government interference in the startup ecosystem.

And more importantly, as someone immersed in startup culture, I am a big fan of just walking away from stuff that can’t be fixed. In my post “Always Swim Downstream” I talk about focusing on what you’re good at and just walking away from unsolvable problems.

America is an unsolvable problem, a nation divided and deeply in hate with itself. If it was a startup we’d understand how unfixable the situation is, most of us would leave for a fresh start and the company would fall apart.

America is MySpace.

But leaving America means renouncing your citizenship, moving out of the country and leaving family and friends behind. You can retain your citizenship if you like, but you’ll still be away from loved ones and still be paying taxes. You lose all the good stuff about America and have to keep all the bad stuff.

I love this country but we have a management team that’s both evil and incompetent. And the way “stockholder rights” are implemented there’s absolutely no way to stop or even slow down the rush to misery. I wish people had the choice of voting with their feet. This tends to keep the individual states somewhat honest in their dealings with citizens because they have to compete against 49 other states. But there’s no escaping the fed. It’s like a startup where everyone is miserable but no one is allowed to quit.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: David Teten is a partner with ff Venture Capital and founder and chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. Follow him on Twitter @dteten.

Modern encryption systems are, in theory, exceptionally secure. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), for example, is so sophisticated that all known attacks are considered computationally infeasible. It is no surprise then, that the NSA considers 256-bit AES safe for storing top-secret data.

What is a little more surprising, however, is that it is not just government agencies that are benefitting from the use of such cryptosystems — you probably are as well. AES has been adopted for commercial use by well-known companies like Apple, and it would appear that law enforcement is none too happy about the development. In his recent keynote address at the DFRWS computer forensics conference in Washington, D.C., Ovie Carroll (director of the cyber-crime lab at the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Department of Justice) lamented, “I can tell you from the Department of Justice perspective, if that drive is encrypted, you’re done… When conducting criminal investigations, if you pull the power on a drive that is whole-disk encrypted you have lost any chance of recovering that data.”

As tempting as it might be to conclude that your data is safe and sound, every day new attacks prove otherwise. After all, despite the strength of these encryption systems, all an attack ultimately requires is a PIN and/or password — information that can be readily obtained by private individuals through social engineering or carelessness on the part of the user. If a few teenagers can remotely compromise a person’s Apple, Google, Twitter, and Amazon accounts in the span of a few hours with nothing more than an Internet connection and a phone, it is hard to believe that the Department of Justice, with all of the powers and resources at its disposal, is so helpless.

In addition to its discreet but certainly formidable array of hacking tools, the DOJ has repeatedly claimed, with some success, the right to compel defendants to disclose passwords and decrypt files. Moreover, the sophistication of hacking techniques has gone beyond software vulnerabilities; hardware is now just as susceptible to malicious injections. It may be all for the best if criminals are under the impression that their data is protected from prying eyes, but the rest of us shouldn’t be so naïve. It is only by recognizing the vulnerability of our data that we can go about taking the appropriate steps to protect it and call into question the authority of government agencies (which would like us to believe our data is beyond their reach) to access it.

A friend of mine said, “This reminds me of my days in the online video game space. The king of the hill at the time, Sony Online Entertainment (specifically their President John Smedley), would almost like clockwork do an interview/host an event a few weeks before a new launch of their MMO EverQuest, to tell the world how it was the worst business to be in and that it was almost technically impossible to do.

“The correlation is as follows: It wasn’t a horrible business, they made bank, and it wasn’t near technically impossible. In fact, it was only getting /a lot/ easier and less costly. Smedley was doing everything he could to discourage folks entering the market.”

The Department of Justice is stating that encrypting a drive means you’re safe. They are stating that an encrypted drive recovered after power has been cut is impossible to access. This is just not true (not that we have anything against this tactic to catch real criminals).

The reason is simple: The government doesn’t need to break or crack the encryption. They are the government. They can compel you in many other ways to just turn over your access codes or just obtain them through social engineering.

This has prompted some to move their entire operations offshore to try and avoid the prying hands of local government agencies. However, Engin Akyol, CTO of Distil.it (ff Venture Capital portfolio company which operates a global network of servers) observed, “The problem with this approach is that the global reach of U.S. influence is pretty extensive, and virtually no developed nation is going to risk the political fallout of hosting a criminal enterprise and protecting it from American authorities or Interpol.”

Encrypting your data is akin to keeping a self-destructing safe. While your most crucial documents may be destroyed in lieu of falling into the hands of governments and other people, your interactions with other human beings will be harder to erase or destroy. When the FBI took down mob assets in the second half of the 20th century, it wasn’t because they cracked safes containing incriminating documents. It was through long-term investigations and surveillance and legislative advancements.

The same tactics are starting to prove just as successful in cyberspace.

Thanks to Rami Essaid (CEO, Distil.it) for input and Matt Joyce (Dartmouth Computer Science student) for help researching this.

[Comic via xkcd]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s been one week since the death of Aaron Swartz, the prominent programmer and digital activist who took his own life as he was facing federal prosecution for computer fraud after he allegedly used the network at MIT to illegally download a large cache of scientific journals from JSTOR. Since then, a number of people — including Swartz’s family, friends, and longtime colleagues — have questioned whether Massachusetts’ U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz was overzealous in her prosecution of Swartz’s case, and how this may have impacted Swartz’s state of mind leading up to his death.

And now those questions have escalated to the legislative level. On Friday John Cornyn, the Republican Senator from Texas, wrote a letter to United States Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers on the “prosecutorial conduct” surrounding Aaron Swartz’s case — specifically, whether Ortiz’s office handled things appropriately.

One of the key questions Cornyn asks is whether the punishment that was threatened in the Swartz case — as many as 35 years in prison — was proportional to his alleged crime. He also asks Holder whether the U.S. Attorney’s intention was to “make an example” of Swartz. It bears mention that Cornyn, who was once an early sponsor of SOPA, does not take a soft line on digital crime: He has publicly stated that “stealing content is theft, plain and simple.” Nevertheless, he has serious questions about how aggressive the government should be in cases such as Swartz’s.

It goes without saying that this is an incredibly unfortunate and tragic situation all around. But one potentially positive aspect is that it seems to be sparking a very important discussion about what should be considered a crime in the digital age, and how infractions that do occur should be punished.

Here is the full text of Cornyn’s letter:

January 18, 2013

The Honorable Eric Holder
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

Like many Americans, I was saddened to learn last week of the death of Aaron Swartz. Mr. Swartz was, among other things, a brilliant technologist and a committed activist for the causes in which he believed – including, notably, the freedom of information. His death, at the young age of twenty-six, was tragic.

As you are doubtless aware, Mr. Swartz was facing an aggressive prosecution by the Department of Justice when he took his own life. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts accused him of breaking into the computer networks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloading without authorization thousands of academic articles from a subscription service. While the subscription service did not support a prosecution, in July 2011 the U.S. Attorney’s office indicted him on four counts of fraud and computer crimes, charges that reportedly could have resulted in up to 35 years imprisonment and a $1 million dollar fine. This past September, the U.S. Attorney’s office filed a superseding indictment charging Mr. Swartz with thirteen felony counts and the prospect of even longer imprisonment and greater fines.

Mr. Swartz’s case raises important questions about prosecutorial conduct:

First, on what basis did the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts conclude that her office’s conduct was “appropriate?” Did that office, or any office within the Department, conduct a review? If so, please identify that review and supply its contents.

Second, was the prosecution of Mr. Swartz in any way retaliation for his exercise of his rights as a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act? If so, I recommend that you refer the matter immediately to the Inspector General.

Third, what role, if any, did the Department’s prior investigations of Mr. Swartz play in the decision of with which crimes to charge him? Please explain the basis for your answer.

Fourth, why did the U.S. Attorney’s office file the superseding indictment?

Fifth, when the U.S. Attorney’s office drafted the indictment and the superseding indictment, what consideration was given to whether the counts charged and the associated penalties were proportional to Mr. Swartz’s alleged conduct and its impact upon victims?

Sixth, was it the intention of the U.S. Attorney and/or her subordinates to “make an example” of Mr. Swartz? Please explain.

Finally, the U.S. Attorney has blamed the “severe punishments authorized by Congress” for the apparent harshness of the charges Mr. Swartz faced. Does the Department of Justice give U.S. Attorneys discretion to charge defendants (or not charge them) with crimes consistent with their view of the gravity of the wrongdoing in a specific case?

I appreciate your prompt and thorough answers to these questions.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN

United States Senator

A public memorial service for Aaron Swartz is being held in New York City today from 4pm-6pm ET. You can watch a livestream here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Today, the largest university system in the world, the California State University system, announced a pilot for $150 lower-division online courses at one of its campuses — a move that spells the end of higher education as we know it. Lower-division courses are the financial backbone of many part-time faculty and departments (especially the humanities). As someone who has taught large courses at a University of California, I can assure readers that my job could have easily been automated. Most of college–the expansive campuses and large lecture halls–will crumble into ghost towns as budget-strapped schools herd students online.

[Note: at the end of this article, I offer a timeline for how this all comes crumbling down]

Traditionally, droves of unprepared teenagers were crammed into the faceless lecture halls of lower-division and remedial courses. “They graduate from high school, but they cannot pass our elementary math and English placement tests,” said Ellen N. Junn, provost and vice president for the campus piloting the new initiative, San Jose State University. More than 50% of entering student don’t meet basic requirements.

But, even after nearly tripling tuition in a decade and increasing class sizes, dwindling teaching assistants and course offerings have failed the ever-increasing flood of fresh new undergraduates.

Indeed, with all the billions of dollars and academic mindshare spent educating the youth, less than half, 48%, even graduate from SJSU.

Fed up, Governor Jerry Brown has given his blessing to popular online course platform, Udacity, to partner with San Jose State University for the ultra-low cost online lower-division and remedial classes. The tiny pilot of algebra and statistics courses will be limited to just 300 students, half from SJSU and half from high schools and community colleges.

The California Teachers Association has yet to take a stance on the pilot, but at least one faculty member suspects the announcement was timed to subvert opposition. “My personal opinion is that it’s not by accident that this is being announced at a time when most faculty are not on campus, but I have no evidence for that,” said Sociology Professor, Preston Rudy, “I don’t know enough about Udacity to take any position, but over all, I know the university is concerned about who will teach courses if they go online, who has control, and whether they will be university employees.”

While faculty worry about the quality of online courses, the truth is that our education system, primarily designed to test rote memorization, is built to scale and be independant of teacher interaction. A review of research by the Department of Education in 2009 found that “students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.”

More recently, a pilot of MIT and Harvard’s joint online educational initiative, EdX, found that blending SJSU classes with world-class online lectures reduced the number of students who received a C or lower by 31%.

In other words, computers can–and have–successfully replaced teachers.

To boost retention, the National Science Foundation-funded project will offer a range of mentoring and monitoring services, including encouraging emails should students get stuck on a particular assignment.

Online courses aren’t entirely new, but it’s difficult to underestimate just how powerful the California higher education system is. After former University of California President, Richard Atkinson, threatened to drop the SAT from admissions requirements, the College Board rushed to revamp the test for the entire country only a year after the threat. However goes California’s education system, so goes the nation.

If I had to predict how the fallout of this pilot will go, here’s my timeline:

1. Pilot succeeds, expands to more universities and classes
2. Part-time faculty get laid off, more community colleges are shuttered, extracurricular college services are closed, and humanities and arts departments are dissolved for lack of enrollment (science enrollment increases–yay!?)
3. Graduate programs dry up, once master’s and PhD students realize there’s no teaching jobs. Fewer graduate students means fewer teaching assistants and, therefore, fewer classes
4. Competency-based measures begin to find the online students perform on par with, if not exceed, campus-based students. Major accredited state college systems offer fully online university degrees, then shutter more and more college campuses
5. A few Ivy League universities begin to control most of the online content, as universities all over the world converge toward the classes that produce the highest success rates
6. In the near future, learning on a college campus returns to its elite roots, where a much smaller percentage of students are personally mentored by research and expert faculty

The impact of Udacity’s program is a rose or thorn depending on how much value you put into higher education. If you fall into investor Peter Thiel’s camp, who famously funds young entrepreneurs to skip college, than this is good news, as it might funnel more young people into vocational careers, save them thousands in debt, and expand educational access. However, If you fall into the camp of Berkeley researcher, Vivek Wadwha, then one of the most important parts of a young person’s education, face-to-face college interactions, will be lost. Either way, change is coming.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

For the most part, the news about Windows 8 hasn’t been very positive for Microsoft, but the company today announced a major win. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) just signed a new three-year
licensing agreement with Microsoft reseller Insight Public Sector to bring Windows 8, Office 2013, and SharePoint 2013 Enterprise to 75 percent of all DoD personnel. The DoD, Microsoft says, will “use Windows 8 to empower productivity from any location, and any supported device, while taking advantage of enhanced security.” It’s worth noting, of course, that the DoD was already a Microsoft customer.

Today’s announcement, says Microsoft, means the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will now have access to “the latest Microsoft technologies in support of top IT priorities around datacenter consolidation, collaboration, cybersecurity, mobility, cloud computing and big data.” Microsoft also says that this is “the most comprehensive” agreement it has ever established with the DoD. The total worth of the deal is about $617 million, and the Army expects to save more than $70 million per year because of it.

“There’s a move afoot throughout the department to bring about efficiencies in the [information technology] world,” David L. DeVries, DOD deputy chief information officer, told American Forces Press Service. “We took a long, hard look at it … realizing that the Department of Defense relies upon the network and upon information technology to do its business.”

Microsoft will work closely with the U.S. Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command and the Air Force Program Executive Office for Business and Enterprise Systems to achieve “Army Golden Master and Air Force Standard Desktop Configuration compliance for Windows 8.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch