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By Peter Galli  |  Posted 2004-11-19 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The agreements will also support other Department of Defense organizations, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and several Joint Combatant Commands for which the Air Force has executive responsibility. Microsofts Kolcun said that the consolidation of software and hardware product purchases across its enterprise will allow the Air Force to enhance IT operations globally through better management, policies and planning.
"It will be able to add integrated security and configuration management processes as well as baseline requirements that will have security and software feature settings specifically configured. The partnership will help the Air Force meet its goal of standardizing software capabilities to support core Air Force operations," he said.
Another core element of the deal is security, with both the Air Force and Microsoft committing to work together to solve security concerns across the Air Forces global enterprise, Kolcun said. The Air Force will also now drive new methods of testing and upgrading software and increase overall sharing of best practices. For insights on security coverage around the Web, check out eWEEK.com Security Center Editor Larry Seltzers Weblog. In addition, the services program will standardize desktop and server software configurations and streamline configuration management capability. "We at Microsoft will learn how to continually improve our technology as it is applied across a massive and truly global enterprise like the U.S. Air Force," Kolcun said. Check out eWEEK.coms for Microsoft and Windows news, views and analysis.


 
 
 
 
Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.

He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.

He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.

He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.

He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.

He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.

His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.

For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.

 
 
 
 
 
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