News

Leveraging the power of COTS in defense IT

8/7/2020 12:00:00 AM
By: Karl Fuchs

It is often said, “Leveraging COTS products allows the government to effectively share development costs with private industry and consumers.” In addition, COTS products by the nature of their distribution have undergone extensive, real-world testing. All this testing ultimately provides a proven and reliable platform.

This is, of course, a very straight forward and common sense concept, and it is very applicable when the government requirements are roughly the same as commercial applications. The concept of leveraging COTS communications platforms becomes problematic when stringent defense, security and environmental requirements are taken into account. When the programs evaluate the daunting list of DoD requirements, the belief is the government will need a custom-built, government-funded platform, and the idea of leveraging COTS is forgotten. 

Read the full article here on Washington Technology e-newsletter.