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June 29, 2009
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ERICSSON GOES FEDERAL!
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| Reagan Building here we come! Mark your calendar for the morning of July 21: Our New Washington IV. (So cool it has Roman numerals like the Super Bowl.) Speakers Mark Warner, Russ Ramsey, Alice Rivlin, Jerry Jasinowski, and others. Stay tuned! |
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Being hip, and located on Connecticut Avenue, we inaugurated our newsmaker series this afternoon, where high level officials walk into our plush offices, step over the waste baskets and ping pong paddles, and let us know what’s up.
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Just an hour ago, Doug Smith stopped by as our first guest. He’s the CEO of Ericsson Federal, which was founded four years ago to start selling broadband technologies into the federal gov't. Ericsson is a $30 billion company with 70,000 employees; EF has 150 of them and is moving HQ tomorrow from Vienna to Reston. Its biggest customer is DoD, and it's currently demoing a product at Empire Challenge that can send high speed video to a soldier’s handset showing enemy troop movements as seen by unmanned aerial vehicles, or border intrusions to Customs agents. It makes wireless gear and applications, cell towers, and networks. Doug points out that even though the JTRS program hopes in the next decade to do just 1-2 megabits per second, Ericsson’s already showing customers 10 mps and hopes to do 100 mps in a few years.
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No, that’s not Doug’s bicycle, but just one of ours, leaning against our signature wall that he signed. In real life, he rides a Softtail Deuce Harley through the Blue Ridge—oh, and also around Vienna and Reston, so watch out. Originally from Minneapolis, he’s spent the last 20 years in Texas working for Ericsson as well as a couple of broadband startups. By the way, it's looking for employees, especially “wireless engineers with gov't experience and clearances.”
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| Navy CIO: Build Robots! |
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This morning, to prove our job could not be outsourced to a machine, we personally heard Navy CIO Rob Carey tell a packed house at Mountaintop Marketing’s Peak Series Breakfast at the Crystal City Marriott that the Secretary of the Navy wants to become DoD’s leader in unmanned systems: “We’ve gone from zero robots to 20,000 very quickly, but there’s still a huge market opportunity. Another target: network and application consolidation. He says the Army has about 500 networks that he’d like to get to less than a dozen.
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As for the ever popular cyber security, Rob says it’s about managing risk. “I don’t want a network that is so secure no one can use it, but one that is agile, efficient, and secure.” Another key if you meet with Rob: “Do your homework and have something that fills a hole in my brick wall. If you’ve got a brick that is slightly better than a brick I’ve already got, that doesn’t really help. I need problems fixed.” (We’re pretty sure that’s a metaphor; though, literally, the evolution of bricks from mud to calcium silicate was pretty open source.)
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Also speaking: General Dynamics’ Director of Navy Networks Bill Rau. In response to President Obama’s Blackberry addiction, Bill says GD and NSA came up with a secure Blackberry-like device with type one security. For small business partners, Bill says GD is looking for system development technology that needs maturation along with ITAR-Certified US-based suppliers. Oh, and does anyone realize GD is just two days away from Jay Johnson taking over as CEO for the retiring Nicholas Chabraja?
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Mountaintop Marketing President Michael Bowlds presents MAR Incorporated CEO Mike Norcio with the Small Business Spotlight. Based in Bethesda, MAR is a privately held professional and technical services company that does work for agencies like GSA and NRC.
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This newsletter is a journalistic news source which accepts no payment for featured interviews. It is supported by conventional advertisers clearly identified in the right hand column. You have been selected to receive it either through prior contact or professional association. If you have received it in error, please accept our apologies and unsubscribe below. © 2009, Bisnow on Business, Inc., 1323 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.
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