June 8, 2020 | International, C4ISR
Air Force awards multimillion-dollar secure communications contract
Andrew Eversden The Air Force awarded a contract potentially worth $35 million to Wickr, a secure communications platform provider, the Defense Department announced June 1. Under the two-year contract, the Air Force will use Wickr's secure recall, alert and messaging services. The cloud-based application suite will provide end-to-end encrypted file, video, chat, text and voice services for end users. The Air Force is obligating $7.7 million in fiscal 2020 funds at the time of the award, according to the contract announcement. The award was made by the Air Force Installation Contracting Center at Hurlburt Field in Florida. Joel Wallenstrom, CEO of Wickr, told C4ISRNET in a June 4 interview that the award was the largest contract his company has won. The San Francisco-based company has already established a relationship with the Air Force through the service's Strategic Financing program, which includes several internal innovation and small business outreach hubs. In April, Wickr announced the program had awarded his company a contract as part of $550 million in awards it gave out to 21 companies. According to Wallenstrom, Wickr's platform includes a federated network capability that allows a network administrator to create temporary environments for users to communicate with allies or family members without increasing risk. The platform "not only secures things on a day-to-day basis, but in very special circumstances you can create temporary secure operating environments with people of choice, but that doesn't mean you bring them into ... your environment permanently,” Wallenstrom said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/06/05/air-force-awards-multimillion-dollar-secure-communications-contract