Navy Chooses Struggling BearingPoint For Network TransitionNavy Chooses Struggling BearingPoint For Network Transition

Troubled consulting and systems integration firm BearingPoint says it has won a contract to help the United States Navy move some of its technical operations onto a service-wide intranet.

Under the one-year, $5.9 million deal, BearingPoint will move the Navy's Network Warfare Command and U.S. Fleet Forces Command on to the Navy Marine Corp Intranet, a massive data network that was built by Electronic Data Systems at a cost of more than $6 billion.

Under the plan, BearingPoint will provide the Navy with transition and technology refresh support, legacy network and application lifecycle support, and training and user support for the two departments moving to the intranet.

The deal will no doubt be welcomed at BearingPoint, as the company faces a host of legal and financial issues that threaten to undermine its credibility in the market.

In an annual report for 2005 filed only last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said its ongoing failure to file timely reports with the SEC over the past two years could lead the NYSE to "begin proceedings to delist our common stock."

BearingPoint failed to file its annual reports for fiscal 2004 and 2005 on time. It also has failed to file quarterly reports for the past six quarters.

The possible delisting was just one item in a string of bad news disclosed last month by BearingPoint. The company reported a net loss for fiscal 2005 of $721.6 million, compared with a loss of $546.2 million the previous year. Revenue was flat year-over-year at $3.38 billion.

BearingPoint also reported that attrition within its professional ranks was 26.7% in 2005, compared with 22% in 2004.