10 stories you've been following

1 MIDTIER CONTRACTORS SQUEEZED. Midtier contractors are seeing their market share shrink. Though some count their revenue in the hundreds of millions, they struggle against the multibillion- dollar companies and smaller firms that benefit from set-aside programs.

2 CSC TO CUT JOBS ON IRS CONTRACT. Computer Sciences Corp. reduced its workforce after the Internal Revenue Service delayed work on Release 5 of the Customer Account Data Engine. CSC declined to say how many employees were laid off.

3 BOEING PROTESTS GOES-R AWARD TO LOCKHEED. The battle of the aerospace titans continues as Boeing Co. cries foul over the award of a $1.1 billion weather satellite contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. Boeing says its solution is superior to Lockheed’s.

4 GSA AWARDS 72 SMALL BUSINESS ALLIANT CONTRACTS. The oft-delayed Alliant Small Business Information Technology contract went to 72 companies. Before they can compete for what could be $15 billion in task orders in the next decade, they have to certify that they are indeed small businesses.

5 GSA TAKES HARD LINE ON PRICE NEGOTIATIONS. Sun Microsystems, Canon U.S.A., EMC and Cisco Systems all walked away from talks with the General Services Administration because of what they called unreasonable demands.

6 AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND SEEKS APPLICATIONS SUPPORT. The Air Force wants help building a sys tem for real-time notification of atmospheric and space nuclear detonations.

7 ALLIANT HEAD SCRATCHER. The General Services Administration’s declaration that work under the Alliant Small Business contract couldn’t start until the companies certified their size prompted puzzlement on the Editor’s Notebook blog. Shouldn’t GSA have asked that question already?

8 NORTHROP TO BUILD DATA EXCHANGE FOR VESSEL TRACKING. Northrop Grumman Corp. will help the Coast Guard with its efforts to build the Nationwide Automatic Identification System under a two-year, $12 million contract.

9 REPORT CALLS FOR INCREASED CONTRACTOR SCRUTINY. New laws that require more disclosures by contractors don’t go far enough, according to the Center for American Progress. The group wants more information on subcontracting and wages and the creation of a centralized database for those records.

10 SMALL BUSINESSES TO GET THEIR OWN EAGLE. The Homeland Security Department is working on a small-business version of its Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions contract. It will have categories for companies that are in the 8(a) program, owned by service-disabled veterans or located in Historically Underutilized Business Zones.

These daily news stories received the most traffic on Washington Technology’s Web site in December. For more news, go to www.washingtontechnology.com.