TDA I, II snagged by GTSI, Win

Government Technology Services Inc. is the apparent new winner of Treasury Department Acquisition I (TDA I), a two-year contract to supply desktop systems to Treasury users.

The Internal Revenue Service, which ran the procurement, selected GTSI over Electronic Data Systems Corp., which originally won the contract last year but had its award overturned by the General Services Administration's Board of Contract Appeals. Zenith Data Systems, Win Laboratories Ltd. and Concept Automation Inc. also competed for the pact.

GTSI must pass an operational capability demonstration, which is scheduled for today, before it can be awarded the contract. The likely value of the buy was unavailable last week, but the EDS contract was priced at a maximum of $41 million.

The contract is expected to be signed later this month. EDS spokesman Wayne Porter said his company had not yet decided whether it would protest the award.

Also last month, the IRS awarded a second office automation pact, the 8(a) set-aside portion of Treasury Department Acquisition II, to Win Labs for a maximum of $116 million.

Win Labs will supply its own Intel Corp. 486- and Pentium-based microcomputers and notebooks, as well as office automation software, to the department.

Jim Williams, the IRS' deputy assistant commissioner for procurement, said he does not expect the Win Labs award to be protested.

Once the deals are completed, Treasury users will have three office automation contracts to choose from. In addition to GTSI and Win Labs, Concept Automation holds a similar $109 million contract. Mark Magnussen, director of business development for Win Labs, said that although the TDA II award is one of the largest his company has won, the competition means it is unlikely any vendor will earn the maximum revenue from the pacts.

"It's going to be a marketing effort on everyone's part," he said. "We've got a license to sell."

In the TDA I competition, ZDS, GTSI and Win Labs successfully argued that the IRS had improperly scored the EDS offer. All parties agreed that a new source-selection committee should re-evaluate the offers.

Bob Dornan, senior vice president of Federal Sources Inc., said the pending abolition of GSBCA's jurisdiction over bid protests means such rulings are unlikely to occur in the future.

Protesting before the General Accounting Office, where all such claims are likely to be heard in the future, vendors have "virtually zero chance of prevailing," he said. "That kind of nuance just won't come up anymore."