Georgia seeks new bids for $2 billion outsourcing project

The state of Georgia will revise work requirements and seek new proposals for its major communications outsourcing project in response to the uncertain prospects of WorldCom Inc., state officials said July 12. Two teams, one led by WorldCom Inc. of Clinton, Miss., and the other by Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Plano, Texas, submitted bids in June on the 10-year, $1.87 billion Georgia Convergent Communications Outsourcing Project. If WorldCom had been disqualified or unable to compete, that would have left the state with only one team bidding for the project."Reopening the bid process at this time is necessary because of the conditions under which WorldCom prequalified for the bid are no longer valid," said Larry Singer, state chief information officer and executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority.The Georgia Advantage team led by WorldCom included Accenture Ltd., Alltell Corp., Bell South Telecommunications Inc., IBM Corp. and Motorola.The Connect Georgia team lead by EDS included AT&T Corp., Bell South Telecommunications Inc., Convergent Media Systems Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Motorola Inc. and Science Applications International Corp.Although the new request for proposal will delay the planned award schedule for outsourcing project, the project's start date will remain July 1, 2003.The technology office will issue a new request for proposals in August, with bids due in November. The state will select a new contractor in April 2003, according to state officials.Unlike the previous RFP, the state will not require bidders to prequalify for the new RFP, and slight modifications will be made in the RFP pricing models to reflect changing conditions in the telecom market since the project was first conceived, state officials said.Georgia will make a stringent assessment of bidders' financial condition and general business prospects throughout the new evaluation and negotiation process, they said. The state will notify prospective bidders by e-mail and other means, said Michael Clark, a spokesman for the Georgia Technology Authority. The state will modify the RFP to encourage greater competition, Singer said. The state will remove from the bid request several components deemed nonessential to creating a converged communications infrastructure and are not the core competency of the systems integrators and telecommunications firms that are expected to bid on project, he said.The items to be removed include the acquisition of a new state data center, conversion to digital broadcasting for Georgia Public Broadcasting and a Navigator highway camera system. The state will seek independent proposals for these items. Services covered by the new outsourcing RFP will include local, long-distance and wireless phone service; high-speed online access; local area networks; personal computing equipment and support; and two-way interoperable radio and mobile data.A spokesperson for the EDS-led Georgia Connect team expressed disappointment with the announcement that the state will seek new proposals. "We've invested considerable resources in this effort and well over 75,000 man hours and millions of dollars designing a solution that would help the state achieve its vision," EDS spokesman Dana Bolden said. He said the Connect Georgia team is waiting to see what the state will do next. "There are more questions than answers at this point," he said.The Connect Georgia team will have to resubmit another bid later this year, Clark said. "It is an unfortunate situation all around," Clark said. "We really didn't have any choice in the matter. ... We're all just reacting to the circumstances [of WorldCom]."