Palantir Technologies: The Winding Down of DCGS and the Winding Up of Old School Intelware Vendors

March 29, 2019

Update (March 30, 2019) to related to winding down: 

First Mercantile Trust Co Has Lowered By $390,609 Its Raytheon Company in DMinute

If you recognize the acronym “DCGS”,  you probably know that the Tolkien-infused intelware vendor Palantir Technologies has captured the $800 million contract for the US Army’s “new” intelligence system. If not, you won’t care.

According to “Palantir Wins Competition to Build Army Intelligence System,”:

The Army has chosen Palantir Technologies to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for soldiers, according to Army documents, a significant boost for a company that has attracted a devoted following in national security circles but had struggled to win a major defense contract.

The deal is important. A number of old school vendors have been chugging away on intelware for years. Vendors like Raytheon, IBM, Digital Reasoning, and dozens of others failed to deliver. Palantir, which is not without its share of issues, is going to provide war fighters with a more modern systems.

The fact that Palantir’s core software dates from 2003 suggests that more up to date systems are not in the cards for years to come. DarkCyber has picked  up rumors that big chunks of Palantir’s plumbing uses open source, plays semi-nice with legacy system file formats, and operates on the Amazon AWS infrastructure are important to war fighters. The possibility exists that Palantir Technologies can embrace and extend the functionality of its systems.

Does this procurement hint at any future big Pentagon contract announcements? Maybe.

Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2019

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