Tech official: Navy-Marine Corps network on track

The Navy Marine Corps Intranet project has passed its "tipping point" and is heading in the right direction, said Navy Rear Adm. Charles Munns in an interview Wednesday with Government Executive.

Navy Secretary Gordon England announced this week that Munns, who is finishing his tenure as chief of the NMCI effort, has been nominated for a promotion to vice admiral and is scheduled to become the Submarine Force Commander for the Atlantic Fleet. His transfer to the Atlantic Fleet is planned for October.

Munns acknowledged in the interview that the Navy's wholesale conversion to the NMCI system has not been easy or painless. He added, however, that the service now has an unprecedented array of technological capabilities, and said that Navy officials must focus on "harvesting" those tools to provide tangible benefits for its intranet users.

"We, all of us, have come a long way," he said. "We are clearly going in the right direction, and we are accelerating."

Munns said his successor should encourage military personnel "to tell the IT crowd what they need."

Texas-based technology giant EDS is under contract with the Navy to build NMCI, an intranet system connecting hundreds of thousands of service personnel. The contract could eventually be worth more than $8 billion.

Munns also addressed criticisms of the project that surfaced briefly this week at the NMCI Industry Symposium in New Orleans. While most Navy officials there praised the new network, several high-ranking officers raised concerns about the program.

Marine Lt. Gen. Edward Hanlon said the network is too slow and has failed him at crucial times. Many NMCI users complained of system failures and having to use two computer terminals on their desks during the program's transition.

Recent surveys of NMCI users, however, have shown significant jumps in customer satisfaction, according to Munns. He said also that some personnel will inevitably be unhappy with the disturbances caused by a wholesale technology change.

"We still have a long way left to go … I would be the first to admit we have more [personnel] we need to satisfy," he said. "There is a lot of churn going on, which contributes to dissatisfaction."