Cisco gold partner with history of SMARTnet fraud awarded new $578 million Cisco SMARTnet contract by U.S. Army
Less than a year ago, the FBI reported that a Cisco gold partner payed $2.3 million to resolve fraud allegations under the False Claims Act. Last month, that same Cisco gold partner was awarded a new contract valued at more than half a billion dollars to provide Cisco SMARTnet services covering 790,464 pieces of Cisco equipment valued at $4.2 billion (view the entire list) installed in U.S. Army networks.
7-months ago, the former President of a Cisco gold partner was sentenced to 3-years in prison for wire fraud and conversion of government funds that involved Cisco SMARTnet fraud on a U.S. Army contract. Additionally, the Cisco gold partner was forced to pay $2.3 million to resolve allegations that its conduct violated the civil False Claims Act.
In June 2008, Atlantic Magazine revealed how Hummber Winblad Managing Director - Mark Gorenberg, became one of President Barack Obama's biggest and most successful presidential campaign fundraisers:
"When Gorenberg joined Obama's national finance committee, he was pleased to discover an institutional culture eager to embrace new ideas about building user-generated networks. The organizing principle behind Obama's Web site, in other words, is the approach Mark Gorenberg used with such success--only scaled to such a degree that it has created an army of more than a million donors and raisers."
In my personal opinion, this new U.S. Army half a billion dollar SMARTnet contract awarded to a Cisco gold partner with a history of SMARTnet fraud appears to be a financial payback to Mark Gorenberg, one of President Barack Obama's biggest and most successful presidential campaign fundraisers!
Alarmingly today, the Washington Post also revealed a similar opinion:
"The president has been a 'typical politician' and has demonstrated 'systematic favoritism' toward top campaign fundraisers by lavishing them with federal appointments and their companies with taxpayer money and special government deals."
Details of the $578 million Cisco SMARTnet contract awarded by the U.S. Army to a Cisco gold partner with a history of SMARTnet fraud:
"Cisco hardware and software encompasses 80% of the Army's network
routing and switching capability and has been in place for over ten years. Under this vehicle, SMARTnet services will provide the required maintenance support for all Cisco hardware and software for the US Army. In terms of cost, the Army has invested $4.2 billion into Cisco hardware and software capabilities. The new contract will consolidate maintenance for over 400,000 pieces of Cisco equipment and reduce administration of over 5,000 separate Cisco SMARTnet contracts.
"The cost to remediate a single network compromise on an individual basis would not provide timely incident resolutions and would cost more than $150 billion."
