Lawrence Wants Army Out of Industrial Age

One of the biggest frustrations of the current IT environment for  LTG Susan Lawrence, USA, Chief Information Officer/G-6 is finding  her force "anchored in the industrial age" at a time when the  Defense Department must get to the networked age, she said at today's lunch keynote address to the MILCOM 2011 conference. The general said that after ten years at war, the Army finds itself with multiple networks, and now it's time to move to a more unified, enterprise  environment. In her talk, Gen. Lawrence noted that in the new, data-centric world, collaboration is a must, especially in light of the increasing trend  toward joint operations.  Warfighters, she said, require instant  connections no matter where they are.  Network access must work  across boundaries (ground, sea, air, space, cyber).  And all of this  must happen on secure networks that are agile and flexible. Gen. Lawrence also said one of the biggest challenges in a tight fiscal  environment is finding a way to fund IT at a time when continuing  resolutions and uncertainty in the federal budget create unpredictability  for those trying to keep up with the technology.