Pete Gaffney, CEO, Integral Systems

VIA SATELLITE: What type of acquisitions would Integral Systems look at?

GAFFNEY: We did four acquisitions over a six-year period, and it really was to expand our offerings in the ground systems segment. They were strategic offerings that allowed us to go after larger programs and provide end-to-end capabilities for those programs. I think the RAIDRS (Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System program) was where it all came together and all of those capabilities were brought to bear. I believe there are other strategic acquisitions that we could do as well that will help us move into other areas of the market that we would like to get into and also to pursue larger government programs.

VIA SATELLITE: What type of impact has the CCS-C contract had on Integral Systems?

GAFFNEY: It certainly transformed our business. We were mostly commercial at the time, and now we are mostly government, with a little over half of our business with the Air Force. So it really was a big transition for us.
I think it also demonstrated the credibility of our commercial solutions to the government market, and I think it’s opening up doors for us and allowing us to bid larger command and control programs within the Air Force.

VIA SATELLITE: Are commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions more accepted by the government now?

GAFFNEY: I think there has been a lot of progress made in that area. The area where not so much progress has been made is reducing the amount of programmatics on the programs. There is still a lot of design reviews and software development oversight for what are mostly integration jobs. The amount of programmatics far exceeds what we see on a commercial program. We still see a lot of development of very specific requirements rather than adjusting the operational ways to match what the industry has to offer already.

VIA SATELLITE: Are there any limitations to what CCS-C can do?

GAFFNEY: Back in the early 90s, a set of requirements were developed for the standardized satellite operations centers, and CCS-C was designed and built to meet those standards. So really they have the standardized systems they envisioned in the early 90s, so I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t put all the future satellites on it. They have separate procurement coming up for the GPS satellites. The command and control part could just as well go on a clone of the CCS-C system, as could the transformational satellite and space-based surveillance.

VIA SATELLITE: Are you bidding for the command and control segment of GPS 3?

GAFFNEY: We’re on Northrop Grumman GPS team. We would have liked to prime, but believe for a company of our size and a program as high profile as GPS it might have been difficult for somebody to select us. We certainly believe we have the capability.

VIA SATELLITE: What type of acquisitions would Integral Systems look at?

VIA SATELLITE: What type of impact has the CCS-C contract had on Integral Systems?

VIA SATELLITE: Are commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions more accepted by the government now?

VIA SATELLITE: Are there any limitations to what CCS-C can do?

VIA SATELLITE: Are you bidding for the command and control segment of GPS 3?

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