OMB working on gov-wide cloud effort
An emphasis on category management includes plans to develop civilian agency version of the Pentagon's productivity and communications cloud contract.
As the Pentagon plans to begin issuing task orders under its $8.2 billion cloud Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract for email and collaboration services, the Office of Management and Budget is also looking to a civilian version of the vehicle.
Margie Graves, Deputy Federal CIO counted creation of partnerships among agencies on large acquisitions and an overall move towards "best in class" contracts as one of the significant accomplishments in the past year under the President's Management Agenda.
"You’ve just seen the release of new category management release," said Graves, referring to OMB's March memo advising federal agencies to shift to best in class contracts and away from stand-alone vehicles as part of the federal government's move to category management practices.
"We're doing it for a couple of big, huge acquisition programs," Graves said in a speech at the ACT-IAC graduation conference for its Voyager program on May 15.
"One…called DEOS, partnering with the Department of Defense, which is a collaboration in e-mail. Right on its coattails, we're doing it for the civilian part of government also," she said.
Plans for a civilian version of DEOS have begun to surface publicly in the last few weeks, as DOD plans awards and task orders under its effort this summer.
Earlier in May, a General Services Administration official said there were plans for a civilian version of DEOS. GSA is leading the DEOS procurement using its own Schedule 70 supply service.
Alan Thomas, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, said the coming Civilian Enterprise Office Solution (CEOS) is still in the "early stages" of development. The vehicle will look to leverage similar cloud efficiencies for email and other applications for federal agencies.
In her remarks at the ACT IAC event, Graves didn’t give a timeline or more detail on the civilian version plans.
Thomas said the idea came directly from plans for the DEOS, but it wouldn't be a "carbon copy."
Graves said additional accomplishments under the PMO in the past year have also included establishing a new shared services model; increasing the use of federal data to support data-driven decisions; and leveraged more common commercial capabilities.