Bantu contributes to erosion of inter-service communication barriers

Inter-service rivalry — we are talking here about more than the Army-Navy game — has defined the relationship among the U.S. uniformed services from their inception. In the early 1960s they quipped that installing the red telephone for emergency communication between Washington and Moscow was nice, but if such a telephone system were to be installed to facilitate communication among the services — now, that would truly be an achievement.”

Time passes. It is difficult to think of a more commonly used term in military circles today than “joint service.” Washington, D.C.-based Bantu, a provider of secure Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM), is making its own contribution to the joint service approach. The U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy are now deploying Bantu’s Inter-Domain Messaging (IDM) Gateway technology, which allows military personnel instantly to locate and communicate across disparate military networks, locations, and computing platforms — regardless of service affiliation — for what appears to be the first time.”

Bantu’s platform is Net-Centric, instant collaboration backbone supporting the enterprise knowledge management portals for each of the military services, including the AKO, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) largest enterprise portal with over 1.8 million users. IDM Gateway permits military personnel to connect their discrete EIM implementations/networks into one federated secure collaboration system across the Department of Defense (DoD), enabling enhanced communications for planning, training — and joint operations. ”

Bantu’s EIM application is used by other government agencies, including federal, state, and local agencies involved in homeland security and emergency response. In fact, DoD people are now working to bring other homeland defense organizations more closely into the initiative.