Number of Alliant winners doubles after GSA allows proposal updates

The General Services Administration on Friday announced the selection of 59 companies for inclusion in the Alliant information technology contract.

The awards marked GSA's second attempt at picking participants for the $50 billion governmentwide IT contract, which has a five-year base period and one five-year renewal option. Agency officials named 29 winners in July 2007, but the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in March 2008 upheld a protest by eight unsuccessful bidders, sending GSA back to the drawing board.

GSA made nearly double the number of awards this time, largely because bidders were allowed to update their proposals and correct any perceived weaknesses, said Mary Powers-King, the agency's director of governmentwide contracts.

Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer for the McLean, Va., consulting firm FedSources, said GSA could have decided to be more liberal with awards to reduce the risk of additional protests. Winners still must compete against one another for task orders under the contract, he added.

"Part of the environment is understanding that winning the contract is winning a license to hunt," Bjorklund said. "Contract holders will win business, or not win as much, [based on their offerings]. It gets sorted out over time. It just may be [that] it's OK to award [Alliant to] a larger number of companies and let the chips fall where they may."

Mike Sade, assistant commissioner of acquisition management at GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, said he was "very confident" that the latest awards would stand up to any protest.

"A major part of the strategy was to make absolutely sure there were no major grounds for challenge," Sade said. Rather than limiting awards to a pre-set number of companies, GSA evaluated bids based on technical capabilities, past performance and pricing, and then looked for a "natural break point" in the scoring, he said.

GSA awarded the $15 billion Alliant Small Business contract to 72 vendors in December 2008. The Alliant awards will allow GSA to phase out the Applications and Support for Widely-Diverse End-User Requirements (ANSWER) and Millennia acquisition vehicles during the next 18 months, in keeping with plans to reduce the number of governmentwide acquisition contracts for IT.

Powers-King said GSA will track task orders awarded through Alliant, but has no plans to make that information available to the public. Asked if the agency eventually would publicize it in response to President Obama's call for increased government transparency, she said officials still are examining how to comply with the mandate.

"There's a lot of effort currently going on to identify how we will deal with this at a governmentwide level," Powers-King said. "We're definitely willing, it's more of a [question of] how to do it."

A full list of Alliant winners follows:

Abacus Technology Corp., Chevy Chase, Md.

Accenture National Security Services LLC, Reston, Va.

Advanced Management Technology Inc., Arlington, Va.

Advanced Technology Systems Inc., McLean, Va.

Alion Science and Technology Corp., Chicago

Alliant Solutions LLC, McLean, Va.

American Systems Corp., Chantilly, Va.

Analytical Services Inc., Huntsville, Ala.

Apptis Inc., Chantilly, Va.

ARINC Engineering Services LLC, Annapolis, Md.

ARTEL Inc., Reston, Va.

AT&T Government Solutions Inc., Vienna, Va.

BAE Systems Information Technology Inc., McLean, Va.

BAE Systems Science and Technology Inc., Dayton, Ohio

BearingPoint Inc., McLean, Va.

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., McLean, Va.

CACI Inc., Chantilly, Va.

Centech Group Inc., Arlington, Va.

CGI Federal Inc., Fairfax, Va.

Client Network Services Inc., Rockville, Md.

Communication Technologies Inc., Chantilly, Va.

Computer Sciences Corp., Chantilly, Va.

Dynamics Research Corp., Reston, Va.

Electronic Data Systems LLC, Herndon, Va.

Engineering and Professional Services Inc., Tinton Falls, N.J.

Federal Network Systems LLC, Arlington, Va.

General Dynamics One Source LLC, Fairfax, Va.

Harris Corp., Palm Bay, Fla.

Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc., Columbia, Md.

INDUS Corp., Vienna, Va.

IBM, Bethesda, Md.

ITS Corp., Oxnard, Calif.

Keane Federal Systems Inc., McLean, Va.

L-3 Services Inc., Reston, Va.

LGS Innovations LLC, McLeansville, N.C.

Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc., Bethesda, Md.

MacAulay-Brown, Inc., Dayton, Ohio

ManTech Advanced Systems International Corp., Fairfax, Va.

McNeil Technologies Inc. Springfield, Va.

NCI Information Systems Inc., Reston, Va.

Nortel Government Solutions Inc., Fairfax, Va.

Perot Systems Government Services Inc., Fairfax, Va.

Professional Software Engineering Inc., Virginia Beach, Va.

Raytheon Co., Reston, Va.

Science Applications International Corp., San Diego

Serco Inc., Reston, Va.

Smartronix, Inc., Hollywood, Md.

Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio

Stanley Associates Inc., Arlington, Va.

STG Inc., Reston, Va.

SYS (DBA SYS Technologies Inc.), San Diego

Systems Research and Applications Corp., Fairfax, Va.

TASC Inc., Andover, Mass.

TKC Communications LLC, Anchorage, Alaska

Trantech Inc. (DBA T3 Alliance), Alexandria, Va.

TYBRIN Corp., Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

Unisys Corp., Reston, Va.

Vangent Inc., Arlington, Va.

Wyle Information Systems LLC, Mclean, Va.