The Polaris small business vehicle will hopefully be the phoenix that rises from the ashes of GSA’s $15 billion Alliant 2 Small Business (SB) contract. Alliant 2 SB was cancelled in 2020 after a full year of protests at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and through federal court. The reworked contract vehicle currently has two tracks: one for general small businesses and one specific to women-owned small businesses (WOSB). Previously there were set asides for HUBZone certified businesses so we will...

The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitation 10th Refresh 4/8/22 The GSA put forth their 10th Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Solicitation on March 31st. This refresh affects all existing GSA contracts and requires acceptance by all contract holders within 90 days. If you are not familiar with the changes, we will be covering some of the high-level information here. There are five main overall changes: First, there is an update to the SCP-FSS-001 instructions. This covers the permissibility of remanufactured items....

Army Commercial Information Technology IDIQ CHS-6 Coming Soon 3/25/22 In February, the U.S. Army released a second request for information (RFI) from contractors that can provide services for the Common Hardware Systems 6th Generation contract (CHS-6). CHS-6 is an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract for rapid procurement of total lifecycle system management solutions in support of the U.S. Army. The ceiling value is expected to exceed $4 billion and have a length of 10 years (4 base-years and 3...

2/9/22 The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced the second cohort of awardees for the fourth-generation 8(a) Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resource for Services, aka STARS III GWAC. The GSA revealed on February 7, 2022, that a total of 557 underserved and disadvantaged businesses were selected for this cohort. This follows the initial cohort of 426 businesses awarded in June of 2021. The STARS III solicitation’s purpose is acquiring IT services and solutions from 8(a) small businesses. This includes emerging technologies...

01/04/2021 The less-than-convenient phase one response date for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) ProTech 2.0 Satellite Domain is rapidly approaching on January 6, 2022. Protech 2.0 is a multiple-award indefinite quantity indefinite delivery (IDIQ) vehicle that succeeds NOAA’s original ProTech. The ceiling for the contract is $8 billion and it includes four Domains: Satellite, Fisheries, Oceans, and Weather. Each Domain will have its own IDIQ contract with multiple awards. As typical it is five years in duration and has...

12-2-21 The federal Department of State (DoS) released a draft version of the EVOLVE IT Services Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) solicitation on October 24th. This multi-award contract (MAC) is replacing 23 Bureau of IRM (Information Resource Management) contracts including 2010’s Vanguard 2.2.1. EVOLVE will have a five-year base term and may include option periods that could extend task orders by up to 5 additional years. The award ceiling, while initially stated at $4 billion, could be as high as $8 billion...

Army’s $10B ITES-4H IT Contract is Released 8/27/21 Published on August 25, the Army has released it’s highly anticipated ITES-4H contract. The IT Enterprise Solutions hardware vehicle has a ceiling value of up to $10 billion for procuring enterprise IT goods. The length of the contract is the typical 5 years and 5 option years. Manufactured product categories the Army is seeking are broken down into seven catalogs. They consist of purchasing and/or leasing desktop and laptop computers, thin clients,...

GSA OASIS SB on-ramp – 18 firms allowed to stay and others are now back in the running 7/30/21 While reviewing a protest from the company Wavelink, the court found that 18 firms that were awarded for the OASIS SB (small business) on-ramp were improperly given awards. The objection resulted from proposed direct labor rates lower than the suggested range however the awardees did not provide a rationale for them. The GSA went ahead and eliminated the solicitation provisions recognized...

7/29/21 Continuing the trend of Program/IDIQ consolidation in the federal space, The GSA released the final solicitation of the ASTRO IDIQ roughly a year ago. ASTRO is a MAC vehicle created to meet the requirements of warfighters, scoped in collaboration with U.S. Combatant Commands.  Its purpose is to supplement DoD capabilities to ensure interoperability, flexibility, and assurance on modern-day battlefields. The awards covered ten different fields (or pools), including: data operations, mission operations, aviation, ground, space, maritime, development and systems...

Good news come to those who submitted a proposal to obtain a second chance at the Navy’s potential 10-year, $50 billion SeaPort Next Generation (SeaPort-NxG) professional services contract vehicle. In the Defense Department’s July 14 award digest, it was announced that new awards went to 600 businesses overall, though the companies’ identities were not provided. There were only 20 companies that missed the cut – now those are some favorable odds! The first round of awards took place in December...