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The General Services Administration on Thursday released a draft request for proposals for its long-delayed Alliant and Alliant Small Business contracts, two governmentwide information technology vehicles together valued at $65 billion over 10 years.

The draft RFP is the second to be released for this work; GSA first announced the two Alliant contracts in early 2004 and issued a draft proposal in March 2005. The procurement dragged on through delays and leadership changes, however, and the agency decided to reassess, leading to a February 2006 announcement of new plans for the contract.

Under the revised schedule, the public has until June 30 to submit comments on the draft RFP, and a final version will be published in October for contract award by summer 2007, according to GSA announcements. The draft RFPs, along with other documents for the contract, are posted on the FedBizOpps Web site, with additional information on GSA sites dedicated to the main contract and small business component.

The primary Alliant contract, worth $50 billion, will be awarded to 25 to 30 companies in full and open competition, according to a statement announcing the new draft RFP. The small business contract, worth $15 billion, will be awarded to 40 to 60 companies

"Alliant will increase government efficiency and effectiveness, providing the flexibility to support daily operations, infrastructure protection, anti-terrorism initiatives, development and marketing of emerging technologies," said John Johnson, GSA's executive in charge of the contract.

"To the best of our knowledge, the $15 billion Alliant SB [contract] is the largest ever federal set-aside contract for small businesses," he added.

The new requests have been modified to align more closely with the Office of Management and Budget's federal enterprise architecture, a still solidifying system designed to harmonize federal IT investments, as well as with Defense Department technical requirements.

The contracts also have been reworked to allow GSA to certify and decertify vendors over the five base years and five-year option period of the vehicle's life. This change is expected to improve the accuracy of the small business listings, as it would assist the agency in tracking the certification status of businesses and reflecting changes that result from the growth or sale of participating companies.

GSA has said it is seeking feedback on subjects including how the contract aligns with those specification systems, the alignment of labor categories with industry practices, the minimum order sizes specified and overall clarity.

John Okay, a former GSA senior official and now a partner at Vienna, Va.-based Topside Consulting, was pleased with the new draft. He said organization around the federal enterprise architecture gives it more structure than the previous version, as does the listing of services under three major headings of IT infrastructure, application services and IT management.

"I think [the draft RFP] fits well into the way agencies are buying and will buy in the future, which is relying on contractors to provide complex solutions and to provide the integration services, rather than agencies themselves serving as the systems integrator and buying components one at a time and trying to put them together themselves," Okay said.

COMMENTS

• Here are two good examples of contracts combined into a very large contract that prohibits any participation by small contract businesses and is totally unnecessary! These two contracts should be divided into several contracts of a much smaller nature that would be available for small businesses to bid for and achieve. Small groups do not even have the manpower or finances to spend the time necessary to respond to the RFP! Congress needs to get involved now and stop this bundling of actions in government contracting. Not only is this a GSA problem as shown here, but it runs across all government agencies -- particularly DoD. You cannot make money on government contracts unless you are a gigantic contractor -- Ike was right! Beware of the military-industrial complex. It has taken over and now is moving into other government sectors as well! Taxpayer Posted June 5, 2006 6:42 AM
• If this is going to be as overpriced as most of the GSA contracts are, it's no wonder that GSA is in deep trouble. They could probably benefit if they would compare the costs of the products on the GSA schedules with the costs of the same items on the open market. A comparison with the prices on the IDIQ contracts would probably also be useful. Larry R. Doane Posted June 5, 2006 8:25 AM