Sources: the US Navy and Air Force may cancel two nearly complete HR software projects worth $800M+ to let Salesforce, Palantir, and others win similar work
Donald Trump's Navy and Air Force are poised to cancel two nearly complete software projects that took 12 years and well over $800 million combined …
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported review fits a long-running Pentagon procurement pattern: the Defense Department canceled the $10B JEDI cloud effort before seeking new bids from major cloud providers, following the JEDI cancellation and rebid process. That history makes a possible late-stage reset consequential beyond the two HR programs.
The potential beneficiaries are also becoming more central to military modernization. The Army later signed a 10-year Salesforce agreement to update outdated practices, while Palantir has been linked to software work on the planned Golden Dome system.
First-order effects
- The Navy and Air Force could halt two nearly finished HR-system deployments after more than a decade of work, putting the existing projects’ remaining implementation and support work in doubt.
- Salesforce, Palantir and other vendors would gain an opening to compete for replacement work, rather than merely supplying adjacent defense software.
Second-order effects
- A reset would force incumbent integrators and implementation teams to defend sunk work or adapt their products to a new procurement, while agencies absorb transition risk in a core administrative function.
- It would reinforce Salesforce’s case for extending its Army foothold into other services and strengthen Palantir’s position in contests where commercial platforms are pitched against long-running custom programs.
Third-order effects
- If repeated, late-stage cancellations would shift defense enterprise software toward shorter replacement cycles and vendor competition centered on deployability rather than program longevity.
- The pattern could also intensify scrutiny of how the Pentagon defines competition and continuity in major technology procurements, given the earlier JEDI disputes and reversal.
The trend: This is one data point in a broader shift toward reopening entrenched defense IT programs for commercial software vendors with growing federal credentials.