IBM Giving Pentagon $45 Million in Arabic Translation Software

[gocolts 300]

To honor an employee's son who was badly wounded in Iraq, IBM Corp. (IBM) plans to give the U.S. military $45 million worth of Arabic-English translation technology that the Pentagon had been testing for possible purchase.

 

The offer — made from the highest reaches of the company directly to President Bush — is so unusual that Defense Department and IBM lawyers have been scouring federal laws to make sure the government can accept the donation.

 

The story begins one night in late February, when Army Sgt. Mark Ecker Jr., 21, on his second tour in Iraq, was on patrol in Ramadi.

 

Preparing to raid a house, Ecker's unit lined up along a side of the building. But an explosive device had been hidden in the wall, and when it went off, it wounded several soldiers. Ecker eventually lost both legs below the knee.

 

link

 

to IBM

[gocolts 300]

Ecker's father, an IBM mainframe sales specialist in East Longmeadow, Mass., shared the story of his son's ordeal with co-workers, and word spread through the company. Eventually it reached Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano.

 

Palmisano offered 10,000 copies of the MASTOR software and 1,000 devices equipped with it, plus training and technical support.

 

"Hopefully this will be helpful to our efforts," he wrote.

[D_House 0]

to IBM.

[Guest Black Label Society]

Things like this keep my faith in this country alive.

 

My hats' off to IBM. that's great!

 

[wiffleball 4,649]

April 19, 2009

 

The much-publicized donation of Arabic translation software to the Pentagon has been sitting in a warehouse at Fort Carson Colorado for over 2 years. The Pentagon, citing software incomptability problems and a lack of updated hardware and trained personnel....

 

 

God job, IBM. Righteous move.