DOD, GSA to Rethink $8B DEOS Cloud Contract—Again

The General Services Administration will take corrective action—for a second time—on the multibillion-dollar Defense Enterprise Office Solutions cloud contract it began contracting out for the Pentagon almost two years ago.

GSA’s decision followed a second bid protest filed with the Government Accountability in March by Perspecta, which alleged that GSA and the Defense Department divulged sensitive bid information to General Dynamics Information Technology, the other company vying for the contract.

GAO was set to rule on Perspecta’s protest this month. Instead, the government opted to take corrective action, leading GAO to dismiss the protest June 8.

A GSA spokesperson confirmed to Nextgov the agency “took corrective action on the DEOS procurement, which is currently active.”

"Perspecta is appreciative of the decision made by the [GAO] with regard to our protest of the DEOS solicitation and we look forward to cooperating with the [GSA] in the next steps of the competitive process,"a Perspecta spokeswoman said in a statement. 

It is unclear what and how long corrective action GSA and the Defense Department will take. However, the delay in the contract—which aims to provide a common cloud-based business suite across the Defense Department—is only the latest of many setbacks.

GSA initially awarded the DEOS contract to GDIT in August, a decision Perspecta protested in September. In October, GSA opted to take corrective action on the contract’s statement of work and requirements to address issues pointed out by Perspecta. GSA made those changes and later rebid the contract, but in the process, procurement officials evidently shared Perspecta’s sensitive bid information with GDIT—prompting the company to file a pre-award protest on March 6.

Defense acquisition officials made a similar mistake in another high-impact tech contract. According to the Defense Department inspector general, Pentagon acquisition officials “improperly disclosed source selection and proprietary” information from Microsoft to Amazon Web Services following the latter’s protest of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract. The IG recommended the Defense Department implement several acquisition changes for future contracts that exceed $112 million in value. 

Editor's note: This story was updated to include comment from Perspecta.