NIH opens Electronic Commodity Store to 66

Sixty-six companies won seats on the National Institutes of Health's third iteration of its Electronic Commodity Store contract vehicle, the NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center announced Dec. 2.

The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract is for five years with five one-year extensions and has a ceiling of $6 billion.

"ECS III allows us to offer government agencies one-stop shopping for just about anything they could need," said Burl Williams, executive vice president for the government and education subsidiary of Micro Warehouse, Norwalk, Conn., one of the winning companies. Williams said the contract will offer a vehicle for all government agencies, not just NIH. In the past, he said, the Army has been a big user of ECS.

Other winning companies include the government solutions subsidiary of CDW Computer Centers Inc., Vernon Hills, Ill.; Dell Computer Corp., Round Rock, Texas; Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif.; GTSI Corp., Chantilly, Va.; Lockheed Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md.; Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles; PlanetGov Inc., Chantilly, Va., and Soza & Company Ltd., Fairfax, Va.

Companies are already gearing up for the contract.

For Micro Warehouse, Gov/Ed Inc., headquartered in Ashburn, Va., ECS III represents its first major contract vehicle win since the company was spun out from the Micro Warehouse in October. Williams said the company plans to ramp up to offer more services for this vehicle, in addition to its software and hardware offerings. "With 66 awardees, a lot of selling will need to be done. You have you still have to go out and bring the customers in," Williams said.

Also preparing is CDW Government Inc., which has teamed with Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, to help agencies better align customer product needs with integration projects.

"We believe our new relationship with SAIC combines the strengths of each company," said Jim Shanks, president of CDW Government, in a press release.

The complete of winning contractors can be found at http://nitaac.nih.gov/HTMLFile/ECSIIIVendors.html