GSA sets long-awaited Alliant industry day

Contractors interested in the Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract and its small-business companion vehicle will finally get a chance to hear from General Services Administration officials and ask questions -- sort of.

The long-awaited industry day on Feb. 21 will be conducted via a Webcast and interactive Web site, said Jim Ghiloni, Alliant program manager at GSA. The agency will provide a video presentation outlining the plan for the contract, which will remain available online. Industry officials can submit written questions, which GSA officials will answer on the site.

Speaking at TeleStrategies’ Federal Networks 2006 conference in Virginia today, Ghiloni said there is too much industry interest in the contract to hold an effective event in a more traditional setting.

The Alliant contract, which will consolidate two GSA information technology GWACs, has been slow to develop and even now is still essentially in an early stage. The next step after the virtual industry day will be to issue a second set of draft requests for proposals and solicit comments.

"We feel there have been enough substantive changes" to justify staying in draft stage, Ghiloni said. The first draft RFPs came out in April 2005.