EDS gets e-travel slice

EDS was awarded a contract to help provide e-travel services to federal workers after the company protested the original deal that left the giant technology company out in the cold.

General Services Administration officials announced Nov. 10 that the agency had reopened the bidding and awarded the contract for e-travel to EDS and the two original winners, CW Government Travel Inc. of San Antonio and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems of Fairfax, Va. E-Travel is one of the administration's 25 e-government initiatives. The contract is valued at up to $450 million over 10 years.

After the e-travel contract winners were first announced in August, EDS protested and said its proposal needed a full hearing before the award was finalized. So GSA officials invited the three companies finalists in the bidding process to demonstrate their E-Travel solutions again, agency officials said.

The system will be hosted commercially to cut costs and offer a wide variety of services to civilian federal workers, according to GSA officials. EDS is partnering with Zegato Solutions Inc., of Lanham, Md., and The MIL Corp. of Bowie, Md., on the project.

EDS will offer its FedTraveler.com product, which includes an integrated online travel system. Among the features are travel approval, expense management, weather reports, maps and even the locations of automatic banking machines.

"Now EDS must go out to individual civilian agencies to demonstrate our system and its advantages," said EDS spokesman Bill Ritz.

The service already is deployed in several federal agencies including the Veterans Affairs Department, the U.S. Marshals Service and the International Trade Commission.