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Lockheed Martin Makes Rare Silicon Valley Acquisition

by on May 4th, 2006

I’ve complained alot about how the defense industry that I work in is pretty stuffy when it comes to innovation. Generally, I see two kinds of technology companies. “Old tech” is stable, blue chip kind of tech companies that operate in the government contracting space. These companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman prefer stable and non-risky technologies that they can sell to their customers. Silicon valley companies tend to be “New Tech” kinds of company. Innovation and bleeding edge are the name of the game, but they are likely to have a wildly different customer base which allows them to be innovative.

And ne’er the two shall meet. Usually, anyway.

MercNews is reporting that Lockheed Martin is breaking that mold and acquiring Savi, an innovator in the RFID space. While RFID has been touted for retail, it plays a very large role in military logistics. Orders to ship 23k MREs to soldiers outside of Fallujah would require mass organization and inventorying. And that’s the mild side of things.

It’s good to see the two sides of tech meeting in the middle, though too bad it’s not Northrop Grumman.

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POSTED IN: Defense, RFID