Started this Blog to offer a window into the changes happening in the Navy associated with Open Architecture.
Article below by Geoff Fein does a good job of describing how the the Navy is striving to transition from the traditional Cold War business model to a more entreprunerial model allowing collaborative-competition for agile, innovative, speed to market capabilities crucial for pacing the threats.
Navy Working To Bring Small Businesses Into Open Architecture Effort
(DEFENSE DAILY 14 AUG 07) ... Geoff Fein
The Navy is trying very hard to get its message out that small businesses are a vital part of its move toward open architecture systems and a more competitive atmosphere, said a Navy official.
"We are trying to work very hard to put the message out to the folks that typically don't have the opportunity...the small business...that we want to encourage and embrace what they bring to the table," Anne Sandel, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy integrated warfare systems, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
The Navy has been realigning its software architectures into smaller components so that small companies that have traditionally found it difficult to compete against the large prime contractors, can feel that they now will have a fair shot, she added.
Sandel's remarks were in response to comments from Rob Pence, president of Maryland-based Lakota Technical Solutions. In a July interview with Defense Daily, Pence was critical of the Navy's efforts to ensure a small company's technologies are protected and that open architecture benefits smaller subvendors.
"The problem we are seeing right now--it is all words. There is no meat behind it," Pence said last month in response to the Navy's efforts (Defense Daily, July 24) Sandel said she was disheartened by Pence's concern over his ability to work with the Navy and its open architecture vision of the future.
In particular, Pence noted his issues with the way the Navy's Software, Hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise (SHARE) repository at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, Va., handled an issue regarding Lakota Technical Solution's data rights.
"But the problem with SHARE is the way the entanglements of data rights and so forth...it just makes it very unusable from a small business standpoint," he said (Defense Daily, July 24).
SHARE has specific limitations to it, Sandel noted. The Navy doesn't want a small company to have to give away its intellectual property rights that the company brings to the table.
Additionally, the SHARE repository is not the only effort the Navy is pursuing to encourage small businesses to participate in the open architecture effort.
"I blamed ourselves for not having that message more clearly articulated to the small business. The impression was left that, "if I don't participate in SHARE, then that's my only opportunity and I am being shut out by the big guys and now the Navy," Sandel said.
While there is a tremendous body of work going into the SHARE repository for reuse opportunities, whether for the prime or Navy customer, it's not the only avenue for a small company, Sandel noted.
"What you are going to see happen, over the next 12 months, as we work forward on these new software baselines and we compete work we have traditionally not competed, we are very much looking toward the companies Mr. Pence represents, to come forward with their specific software offering or algorithm that we can then use and host and have available to the rest of the Navy]," she said.
"I feel the intellectual property rights have gotten in the way of the conversation," Sandel added.
People are worried about developing an algorithm and then having to put it into the SHARE repository and seeing their competitive edge disintegrate, she added.
"That's not what SHARE is about. We are not asking for the source code on Mr. Pence's one offering that brings him to the table on a competitive fashion," Sandel explained.
"We very much want to do what PEO (program executive office) Submarines has so successfully done, which is encouraging the person with the special algorithm, in an area we require, to come to the table whether it's a five-person organization or a 500,000-person organization," she said.
The Navy has been very consistent, from Secretary Donald Winter on down to Delores Etter, the Navy's top weapons buyer, and down to the PEOs and program managers, in stressing how important the open architecture effort is and the importance of leveraging the skills that small businesses bring.
The Navy has held a number of industry days, there is training available at both the Defense Acquisition University and the Naval Post Graduate School, there are web sites, and just last week, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) held a two-day conference in southern Maryland examining open architecture versus open systems, Sandel pointed out.
"We are working very hard, at a grassroots level, to have that understanding and learning, as well as our industry primes, to have that understanding and learning, Sandel said. "But we are not there yet by any stretch and I think that's what we are seeing with Mr. Pence and others that possibly haven't had that accessibility."
Sandel said she has heard from multiple small companies, and from the large ones, too, that they have faith in the Navy's efforts, and they understand their rights and protections when it comes to the SHARE repository.
"For us, having access to SHARE, seeing what is out there, this has opened up the business model where a company like mine can compete," Bob Duffy, board member of SimVentions, said.
"Five years ago we couldn't compete. What [SHARE] does, it opens the door for us," he added.
The Fredericksburg, Va.-based company does systems engineering, modeling and simulation and tactical software. Three quarters of its business is with the Navy, Duffy noted.
While there is still the challenge of whether a prime contractor will turn to a company like SimVentions, Duffy said it is up to the small company to try and make that work.
"The onus is on us to establish a relationship with the prime," he said.
Duffy added that SimVentions has taken a different approach on data rights.
"We are willing to give up data rights. Why? [Because] we don't see a huge market for tactical software.
Duffy said two primes have expressed interest in what SimVentions is doing.
