DISA pushes JELAs toward eight DoD software agreements
The savings case is obvious; the harder part is making Army, Navy, Air Force and agencies buy like one customer.
TL;DR
Federal News Network reports that the Defense Information Systems Agency is working on four additional Joint Enterprise License Agreements, which would take the DoD-wide software-buying effort from four vendors to eight. Current agreements cover Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and Palo Alto Networks; DISA declined to name the next companies, values or timing. Contracting offices, component CIO shops and software vendors are affected. The useful test is not whether DISA can negotiate bigger bundles, but whether components stop buying the same products through local contracts.
DISA’s enterprise software push is moving from sensible procurement theory into the harder phase: getting the department to behave like an enterprise. David White, DISA’s Joint Enterprise License Agreement program manager, said the agency is working on four new multiyear JELAs, according to Federal News Network. DISA already has agreements involving Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and Palo Alto Networks, and White has previously said each agreement can take about 18 months to set up.
The case for doing this is not subtle. Federal News Network reports that the Army spends $2.8 billion a year on software licenses across 120 contracts in seven offices. That is the sort of fact that makes enterprise licensing look less like acquisition reform and more like basic housekeeping. DoD’s procedures already tell requiring officials to check enterprise software agreement availability before buying elsewhere, and to use an agreement when its terms, conditions and prices represent best value to the government (https://www.acquisition.gov/dfarspgi/pgi-208.74-enterprise-software-agreements).
The operational problem sits below the procurement slogan. A DoD-wide agreement that only one component uses is not really an enterprise agreement; it is a larger local deal with better branding. White said DISA began convening DoD and industry officials in December to align procurement plans, while Army IT funding official Adam Nucci described monthly coordination with Navy and Air Force counterparts. That is the part contracting officers should watch. The dollar savings come later, if the services agree early enough on requirements, pricing assumptions and acceptable outcomes.
For vendors, the message is also fairly plain. The department is trying to move routine commercial software and cybersecurity tools out of one-off component buys and into shared vehicles. That can make demand more predictable, but it also means selling into the enterprise fight before the solicitation is written, not after one service has already defined the requirement around its own stack.
Published ·Deep Fathom