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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

> A parallel acquisition system – buying needed apps by monthly or yearly subscription to meet changing mission requirements – could improve deterrence by complicating an enemy’s war planning, Lockheed Martin’s top executive suggested Wednesday.

Bullshit alarms going off full blast on the first paragraph, that's some brazen BS. I didn't even read the rest of the article since they led with that.

This is management being absolutely horny for recurring payments. I don't know if business schools are really pushing this idea now or if it's in vogue for some other reason but everybody outside of management hates it.

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They already got a taste of this with the logistics backend for the F35[1], but NGAD explicitly said, "we're not doing that shit again", so LM is angling for another way to get those systems locked in. It's gonna be a grappling content for sure, but as long as the DoD doesn't want to pay for things like frickin prototypes then LM's gonna keep angling for ways to make cash on the support end.

[1] Which was a mess. I mean, even in an industry notorious for messes, it stood out, by a lot. I can think of one other program I've seen that gave the 35 LSA/MTA/ILS/ERP/DOA/InsertYourFavoriteMeaninglessAcronym a run for its money.

What occurred with the F35's logistics backend?

Lockheed did it, with predictable results.

I've been involved with a previous project of theirs in that space, possibly even one that led to F-35 one. If not for contractual issues, we would have rewritten it better ourselves in less time, without things like finding two years into supposed deployment that a core module wasn't a fit for the problem domain, because they copied it from a completely different type of vehicle.

If I recall properly, the original was such a piece of excrement, that they had to bin it, and re-write it. Payed by the DoD of course.

The new system is just as bad.

> I don't know if business schools are really pushing this idea now or if it's in vogue for some other reason but everybody outside of management hates it.

I think most senior leadership at Lockheed are engineers and not MBA-types, certainly the CEO has a bachelors of engineering from the Air Force Academy.

This is probably to try reduce the risk of big projects with one payout causing financial pains during down markets. The government is going to budget for a subscription way in advance so you suddenly see monthly income for the next lifetime of the administration.

One business market a lot of people are enviable is furniture on payment plans - you sell an item and get cash every month for the next couple years. Industries where you have such a clear forecast are much easier to plan around (yes, this was something from Business School lol).

I think it’s all about creating cash flows that can be securitized and resold in capital markets.

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