contract vehicle | The Contracting Education Academy

October 1, 2019 By cs

A new contract offers on-demand support for cyber missions

The government has selected Parsons for a $590 million cyber contract called Combatant Commands Cyber Mission Support (CCMS).

The contract, run out of the General Services Administration (GSA), will support cyber capabilities — both hardware and software requirements — across the government to include geographic and functional combatant commands, the interagency and federal/civilian agencies.

“The contract, the way it was structured was to be able to develop and deliver capability — multi-domain capability — across the services, both defensive, non-defensive capabilities, as well as open-source, intelligence analytics through this contracting mechanism,” Paul Decker, executive vice president and head of cyber and intelligence business for Parsons, told Fifth Domain.

“The intent of this is for it to be a multiuse contract to serve both the DoD, as well as interagencies across the department … A key takeaway is as organizational requirements continue to get fed up through the various different tactical organizations, it is all going to be about having technology that is interoperable, integrateable and that can be used at each echelon at an organization.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2019/09/25/a-new-contract-offers-on-demand-support-for-cyber-missions

May 15, 2019 By AMK

How GSA is making software contracts more like commercial sales

The General Services Administration has adjusted some components of its IT Schedule 70 contract, the federal government’s largest IT purchasing vehicle, to give agencies a more efficient way to buy software services, the agency announced April 16.

Three special item numbers on the contract, which more narrowly define IT services the government wants to purchase, were updated to help agencies better comply with policy and purchase new technology.

“Now our offerings align better with the way software is sold commercially,” Bill Zielinski, acting assistant commissioner of GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category, wrote in a blog post. “Now it’s easier for our customers to get what they need, including transferring software licenses among federal entities.”

The three changes adjusted language related to term software, perpetual software license and software maintenance service contracts.

The updates better define term software as distinguished from software-as-a-service, include identification tags and transferability rights for perpetual software licenses, add utilization limitations across all three special item numbers and define commercial supplier agreements to include enterprise user license agreements and terms of service agreements.

Keep reading article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/04/17/how-gsa-is-making-software-contracts-more-like-commercial-sales/

March 30, 2017 By AMK

CDM program to get facelift to fix problems with initial $6 billion contract

Homeland Security Department officials hailed the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program in August 2013 when it and the General Services Administration awarded the $6 billion contract as a network security program that would provide a “standard measure of protection across government within three years.”

Here we are nearly four years later and CDM is a lot harder than initially thought and most agencies remain in Phase 1 of the program. The challenges can be traced to a host of reasons, from poor agency planning because they didn’t know all the devices and end-points on their networks, to a contract vehicle that wasn’t flexible enough, to bid protests that have delayed nearly every award.

But before anyone calls CDM a failure or even a lost opportunity, GSA and DHS deserve a ton of credit for doing something few agencies publicly do — recognize the deficiencies of their program and developing a plan to fix them going forward.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2017/03/cdm-program-get-facelift-fix-problems-initial-6b-contract/

September 23, 2016 By AMK

Kingdomware decision gives new meaning to the words ‘government contract’

The Supreme Court’s June 2016 decision in Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, No. 14-916 (June 16, 2016), may significantly impact the meaning of the term “government contract” for years to come.

Supreme Court seal The case centered on a project for the Department of Veteran Affairs. When VA continually fell behind in achieving its three percent goal for contracting with service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, Congress enacted the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006. See 38 U.S.C. §§ 8127 & 8128. The Act includes a mandatory set-aside provision that requires competition to be restricted to veteran-owned small businesses if the government contracting officer reasonably expects that at least two such businesses will submit offers and that the “award can be made at a fair and reasonable price that offers best value to the United States.” This is an iteration of the well-known “Rule of Two.”

When it published regulations implementing this statutory requirement, VA took the position that the set-aside requirements in § 8127 “do not apply to [Federal Supply Schedule] task or delivery orders.” 74 Fed. Reg. 64619, 64624 (2009). The Kingdomware case posed a direct challenge to this interpretation.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.contractorsperspective.com/small-business/kingdomware-redefines-government-contract/#page=1

January 18, 2016 By AMK

NIH-run IT contracting vehicle slashes fees

One of the federal government’s largest governmentwide acquisition vehicles is slashing the fees it charges agencies to purchase IT products and services.

The National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center — known as NITAAC — announced it would pare back the prices for its three offerings by as much as 35 percent.

The center is one of just three entities authorized by the Office of Management and Budget to manage governmentwide acquisition contracts, or GWACs.

NITAAC officials cited the success of three agency-run programs for the fee drop. In 2015, the center expanded its services, including offering assisted acquisition services to Defense Department agencies.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/01/nih-run-it-contracting-vehicle-slashes-fees/124878/

The government has selected Parsons for a $590 million cyber contract called Combatant Commands Cyber Mission Support (CCMS).

The General Services Administration has adjusted some components of its IT Schedule 70 contract, the federal government’s largest IT purchasing vehicle, to give agencies a more efficient way to buy software services, the agency announced April 16.

The Supreme Court’s June 2016 decision in Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, No. 14-916 (June 16, 2016), may significantly impact the meaning of the term “government contract” for years to come.

One of the federal government’s largest governmentwide acquisition vehicles is slashing the fees it charges agencies to purchase IT products and services.

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