Industry News
General Dynamics Receives $108 Million For Abrams Tank Integrated Management Work
The U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, $108 million for the production of 155 M1A1 tanks through the Abrams Integrated Management (AIM) process.
AIM is a joint effort to refurbish M1A1 main battle tanks involving the U.S. Army Project Manager for Heavy Brigade Combat Team, the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command, the Anniston Army Depot, Anniston, Ala., and General Dynamics Land Systems. Under the AIM program, M1A1 Abrams tanks are completely disassembled and overhauled to a like-new, zero-mile condition. Refurbished tanks incur lower operational and support costs and report higher operational readiness rates.
These tanks will be the first M1A1s configured with additional mission-critical technologies to bolster crew situational awareness (SA). The SA package improvements include second-generation Forward-Looking Infrared, Far Target Locate, Blue Force Tracking (BFT)/Force Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2), a tank-infantry phone, a .50 caliber thermal sight, a power distribution box, a rear slave receptacle, an eye-safe laser rangefinder, and driver's vision enhancement. This situational awareness package increases the M1A1 Abrams tank's fighting capability by providing soldiers an electronic graphic of the battlefield with icons for friendly and enemy forces, and increasing the accuracy of the tank commander's .50 caliber machine gun.
Work will be performed by existing General Dynamics employees in Lima, Ohio, and Eynon, Pa. These M1A1 tanks are slated for delivery to U.S. Army units beginning in July 2007.
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BP Alternative Energy Buys US Wind Company
Representatives of BP announced Tuesday that it has purchased Greenlight Energy, Inc., a US-based developer of wind power generation projects. The purchase will allow BP to accelerate its plans to develop a leading wind power business in North America.
BP has acquired all the shares of Greenlight Energy for a consideration of some $98 million, excluding working capital and tax adjustments.
Greenlight is a developer of large-scale wind energy projects across the USA. Founded in 2000 and based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the company has a portfolio of some 39 mature and early stage development projects across the USA with a potential total power generating capacity of 6.5GW. This portfolio contains a number of projects which BP expects to be able to develop over the next five years.
The purchase will further accelerate the rapid growth of BP's US wind power business, a key part of BP Alternative Energy, the company's low-carbon power generation business. In July, BP Alternative Energy announced it had reached agreement with the wind project developer and turbine manufacturer Clipper Windpower to acquire a 50 per cent stake in a 2GW wind development portfolio in the USA as well as an agreement for the supply of turbines with a generating capacity of up to 2.25GW over the next five years.
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Eicon Networks to Purchase Intel's Media and Signaling Business
Representatives of Eicon Networks Corporation ("Eicon") and Intel Corporation announced Aug. 9 that they have signed an agreement for Intel to sell the assets of its media and signaling business to Eicon.
The acquisition is expected to allow Eicon to become a leading player in the media processing and signaling market segment. The sale will enable Intel to focus its investments on its core communications and embedded businesses, including Intel Architecture and network processors, modular communications platforms and optical modules. The transaction is expected to close in approximately four to six weeks and is subject to regulatory review and normal closing conditions. Financial terms are not being disclosed.
Intel's media and signaling business includes all of the product lines from Intel's Dialogic acquisition, as well as Host Media Processing (HMP) software and HMP-enabled blades. Intel's complete line of SS7, PBX integration and gateway solutions are also included in the sale.
With Eicon's complementary Diva Server line of products, it is anticipated that the acquisition will enable Eicon to provide enhanced enterprise and service provider offerings to current Eicon and Intel customers as well as future customers. Eicon plans to continue to work closely with Intel as an active member of the Intel Communication Alliance.
Representatives of Eicon also announced that concurrently with the acquisition, leading global investment groups Investcorp Technology Ventures and Tennenbaum Capital Partners will invest in Eicon, with Investcorp serving as the lead equity investor in the transaction and Tennenbaum providing a credit facility and serving as an equity co-investor.
Intel's media and signaling business includes approximately 600 employees involved in a variety of functions, including engineering, product testing and validation, operations and marketing. It is expected that a significant number of these employees will become employees of Eicon. The two companies will be working together during the coming months to seamlessly transition the business in order to continue to offer high quality service and support to all customers.
This sale does not impact Intel's communications infrastructure products for telecommunications equipment manufacturers, including its industry-leading Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) blades and carrier-grade rack mount servers, and its CompactPCI compute blades and chassis.
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China's Ministry of Public Security Selects Alcatel for Next Generation Network
Representatives of Alcatel announced that it has been awarded a contract by China's Ministry of Public Security to deploy a next generation network (NGN). It is the second nation-wide NGN network deployed by a government organization in China, following the one deployed by Alcatel for the China State Council Information Office in 2005.
Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel will provide an integrated IP communication solution to meet the large capacity needs of the Ministry and provide efficient and secure communications across 32 provinces and cities. In addition to rich telephony features, the network also supports a wide variety of advanced IP-based multimedia services, such as presence-enhanced phone book, which enables a user to see a contact's current availability, push-to-show, which enables a user to see a contact's agenda or video conference, push-to-talk and instant messaging.
Upon the completion of the project by the end of September 2006 , the staff of the Ministry of Public Security of China will be able to enjoy interactive and multimedia services including video telephony, video conferencing, Find-Me Follow-Me; which enables a user to receive calls anytime, anywhere through any device, voice virtual private network (VPN) and soft phone applications.
The new network, including the IMS-compliant Alcatel 5020 Softswitch and Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise, will significantly enhance the organization's operating efficiency with assured quality and performance, while maintaining a seamless connection with the existing voice networks in the second-layer cities.
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Jackson Wu Named Nortel Greater China President
Representatives of Nortel announced Wednesday Jackson Wu as the new president for the Greater China region effective immediately. In this role, he is responsible for Nortel's business in the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan.
Wu has been with Nortel for 13 years, working in various senior management roles in PRC and Taiwan with an impressive track record. Prior to his new role, he was instrumental in building Nortel's business in Taiwan as the managing director. Wu represents Nortel as chairman of eASPNet, a Nortel Taiwan joint venture which provides Internet data center and e-business services. He also led the former Nortel joint venture, Tong Guang-Nortel (TGNT) in 1995 in Shenzhen, PRC and grew the JV into a successful production and service company before it was divested.
Prior to joining Nortel, Wu was the president of Datacraft Limited in Taiwan. In his 10 years in the computer industry, he also worked in various senior management roles at Digital Equipment Corporation.
Wu holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Minnesota State University. As president of Nortel Greater China, he will be based in Beijing.
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Raytheon Names Jack Harrington Vice President, Command and Control Systems
Raytheon Company's Network Centric Systems (NCS) has named Jack Harrington vice president, command and control systems.
Harrington joined Raytheon with its June 2006 acquisition of Virtual Technology Corporation (VTC), a very fast-growing firm that he led most recently as president and CEO and that he founded 11 years ago.
Harrington succeeds Brian McKeon who joined Raytheon Systems Limited in the United Kingdom earlier this year as president and managing director.
Harrington's extensive career has been devoted to supporting Department of Defense technology development. He has more than 18 years experience providing advanced technology engineering support to customers such as Joint Staff; U.S. Central Command; Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Tactical; Naval Air Systems Command; Defense Information Systems Agency; and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Harrington established VTC in 1994 and built the company from three to 125 professionals around the world. Under his leadership, VTC became a leader in the field of distributed modeling and simulation and joint C4ISR(command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) interoperability. He received a bachelor's degree in computer science from George Mason University and is a graduate of MIT's distinguished "Birthing of Giants" entrepreneurial program.
