Air Force BPAs cover IT services

The Air Force Standard Systems Group's Commercial Information Technology-Product Area Directorate recently issued nine blanket purchase agreements worth a combined $650 million for information technology services.

The BPAs, which were announced Nov. 9 and run through that date in 2006, cover a wide range of services and products, including networking, systems, software support, security, engineering, data, training, management and integration.

CIT-PAD issued five BPAs to large businesses: Electronic Data Systems Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Litton PRC Inc. (now Northrop Grumman Information Technology), Lockheed Martin Corp. and TRW Inc.

The service issued the remaining four BPAs to small, disadvantaged businesses: Multimax Inc., RS Information Systems Inc., Sumaria Systems Inc. and Centech Group Inc.

Robert Frye, SSG executive director, said the Air Force considers the contractors "partners in our business environment...[and] we are confident these new partners will enable us to meet the full range of service-related requirements for our customers."

Col. Neal Fox, CIT-PAD director, echoed those views and said the BPAs "will satisfy virtually any IT services requirement for our customers worldwide."

The BPAs are for use by the Air Force and other Defense Department organizations.