The US General Services Administration has awarded IBM the contract to modernize the IT system that supports the federal government agency's Integrated Acquisition Environment, a system federal agencies use to procure equipment, supplies, IT and telecommunications services.

Under the contract, whose value over an eight-year period will be $74.4 million, IBM will design and build a standard IT architecture to support IAE. Hundreds of thousands of government employees and companies that work with the US government use the system, created by the US President's initiative to centralize and streamline acquisition of goods and services by the government.

"The GSA continues to play a central role in transforming the government's procurement process, making it easier and more cost-effective for federal agencies to acquire products and services," Charles L. Prow, managing partner for IBM Global Business Services, said in a statement. "IBM is very pleased to support this important initiative."

A major part of the project will be integrating nine applications IAE currently consists of into one system. The goal is to create one online resource for information "ranging from approved products and services and existing GSA contracts to contractor registrations and certifications, project reports, and federal business opportunities," according to an IBM news release.

In October 2009, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano received the National Medal of Technology on behalf of the company from US President Barack Obama

The push toward consolidation and centralization of IT resources by the US government was announced last year by federal CIO Vivek Kundra. In his announcement, Kundra said the government would leverage more cloud-based services in order to cut spending on the build-out of its own data centers.

One of the first such services launched around the time of the announcement was an IT solution and service procurement system Apps.gov, whose first customer was the Department of Energy.