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The Pentagon has awarded Boeing a $2.7 billion contract for the sustainment of the Apache AH-64 fleet, emphasizing logistics and lifecycle management over new airframes. This contract highlights the growing trend in the defense sector where sustainment costs, driven by software maintenance and proprietary data access, surpass production costs, creating vendor lock-in and limiting competition. The shift towards software-defined warfare underscores the importance of control over critical data for operational capabilities.