The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, has announced on Wednesday a 5-year agreement of “$9.69 billion” to compound Microsoft alongside other enterprise software licences across the military services, the Intelligence community into one contract vehicle, as disclosed by officials.
Reuters reports:
The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a five-year, $9.69 billion agreement to consolidate Microsoft
and other enterprise software licenses scattered across the military services, the intelligence community, and the U.S. Coast Guard into a single contract vehicle, officials said
The cost-cutting effort hands Microsoft a guaranteed enterprise-wide foothold across the U.S. armed forces while squeezing out duplicative spending that officials said had quietly ballooned across years of fragmented, go-it-alone procurement.
The deal, called the Core Enterprise Technology Agreement, is not new spending because baskets of Pentagon software contracts came up for renewal simultaneously.
The funds come from existing budgets already being used to purchase Microsoft 365 subscriptions — covering email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and related tools
