MCLEAN, Va., March 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has been awarded a task order with a $267 million ceiling by the U.S. Army to develop Defense Knowledge Online (DKO), the largest portal task order ever awarded in the federal government. The task order was awarded under the U.S. Air Force Network-Centric Solutions contract vehicle.

DKO is the single enterprise service portal, serving as the entry point for all U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and authorized users to access DoD and government intranets supporting operations, missions and critical support processes for forces worldwide. DKO will provide relevant information and applications to the warfighter and other government users through a secure service-oriented framework to help them perform their missions more effectively.

Under the terms of the task order, Northrop Grumman's Information Technology (IT) sector will provide full systems integration, application development, and operations and maintenance and technology evolution, growing the DKO enterprise solution from 1.8 million users to possibly eight million users or more, potentially across all federal government agencies.

"Our Northrop Grumman team brings a wealth of experience with DKO's foundation and every major integration element so that we can minimize transition and integration risks while rapidly deploying DKO capabilities," said Catherine Kuenzel, vice president of Enterprise Infrastructure Services and Solutions for Northrop Grumman IT's Defense group. "In addition, we will help reduce total cost of ownership by adopting best practices."

The length of the DKO task order is one year with four six-month options. Initial work will be performed at Fort Belvoir, Va., an undisclosed site in Maryland, and in southwest Asia.

Northrop Grumman's teammates on the contract include Cherry Road Technologies, Parsippany, N.J.; Appian, Vienna, Va.; AT&T, San Antonio, Texas; CISCO Systems, Inc., San Jose, Calif.; Dell, Round Rock, Texas; EMC2, Hopkinton, Mass.; SUN Microsystems, Santa Clara, Calif.; CSC, El Segundo, Calif.; SAIC, San Diego; EDS, Plano, Texas; ePlus, Inc. and McDonald Bradley, Inc., Herndon, Va.; SOLERS, Inc., Arlington, Va.; Ennovex Solutions, Inc., Chantilly, Va.; and SRA International, Fairfax, Va.

Northrop Grumman will provide domain expertise and tactical warfighting portal applications.

"This new award is significant to Northrop Grumman due to the growing importance of sharing critical information regarding our nation's defense and security seamlessly and instantaneously across all federal government agencies," said David Zolet, president of Northrop Grumman IT's Defense group. "The DKO task order affirms Northrop Grumman's position as the leading provider of enterprise portal solutions across Department of Defense, intelligence, and civilian agency domains."

Northrop Grumman is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 122,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.

SOURCE Northrop Grumman Corporation
CONTACT: Juli Ballesteros, APR, Northrop Grumman Corporation, +1-703-556-2736, juli.ballesteros@ngc.com
/Web site: http://www.northropgrumman.com