Microsoft Corp won a US$478 million, six- year contract to provide software to the US Army, the biggest order ever for the company's programs.
The agreement covers 494,000 desktop computers, Microsoft spokesman Keith Hodson said. The Army will buy the software from a Microsoft reseller, Softmart, based in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.
Hodson didn't know how the companies will divide the revenue.
The Defense Department has questioned the security of Microsoft and rival products in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of the department's server computers was attacked in March using a flaw in Microsoft's Windows program. The contract shows the Army has decided that Microsoft's security is sufficient, said Rob Enderle, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.
"It looks like whatever that problem was, it wasn't great enough to stop to the sale, or it was fixed," Enderle said. "The Army wouldn't buy this stuff if it still had exposures they couldn't mitigate."
Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, wants to boost sales to US federal and local governments trying to combat terrorism and improve security.
The company has lost some government contracts outside of the US to the free Linux operating system, and it has been working to assure the US government and defense department that its programs are secure.
The Army also will buy licenses for 10,000 copies of Windows for servers that run computer networks, and software for 5,000 Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers, Hodson said.
Calls to the Army command administering the contract and to Softmart weren't returned.
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