Breaking Defense

The Air Force has slated $950 million to rapidly acquire technology from 28 firms, some behemoth defense contractors and others are Silicon Valley startups, over the next five years to support its ambitious Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) for future joint all-domain operations.

The funds have been lumped together in “indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity” (IDIQ) contracts, which means it is unclear how much will go to any one of the vendors for what technology. Rather, the macro-contract allows those firms to pitch the Air Force their wares and the service to make snap — well, snappish — decisions once a technology is demonstrated.

“All an IDIQ is is a hunting license to sell to the US,” explains defense industry guru Bill Greenwalt. He said that the benefit is that acquisition under IDIQs can be processed much faster than the average two-year timeframe it takes to negotiate most DoD contracts. How it works, Greenwalt added, is that  individual task orders are issued” under the contract that then take a few weeks to process — depending on the individual deal underway.

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