US Military Signs Modernization Deal With Microsoft

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 4, 2013 @10:20AM from the fly-fighter-jets-with-solid-color-rectangles dept.

Dupple writes with news that Microsoft has signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and the Defense Information Systems Agency to modernize the software those organizations use. According to Microsoft, the deal will cover 75% of all Department of Defense personnel, and bring to them the latest versions of SharePoint, Office, and Windows. The deal awards Microsoft $617 million, which is after discounts to the software totaling in the tens of millions. Interestingly, DISA's senior procurement executive said, "[The agreement] recognizes the shift to mobility. Microsoft is committed to making sure that the technology within the agreement has a mobile-first focus, and we expect to begin to take advantage of Microsoft’s mobile offerings as part of our enterprise mobility ecosystem."

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Re:Hope it's not windows 8 by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-01-04 14:45 · Score: 1, Troll

"Hope it's not windows 8 on the desktop / laptops."
What military in its right mind would opt to choose closed-source, proprietary, and more to the point UNPROVEN software for their day-to-day operations?

I have had some issues with the military before but I never thought they were actually stupid. This comes pretty close to changing my mind.