Army takes next step on large services buy

Seventeen companies have been picked by the Army to compete for a piece of its $20 billion enterprise services buy.

TGhe Army has said it wants to award the IT Enterprise Solutions-2 Services contracts by the end of June.

Barbara J. Trujillo, an Army contracting officer, sent out letters yesterday notifying each vendor that the service had reviewed its corporate qualification submission and found it "a viable potential prime contractor for ITES-2S."

The qualification is an invitation to submit a bid. The 17 vendors chosen were among many more that submitted packages, according to the Army. Now the service must issue a final request for proposals.

The Army announced last week that it would issue the RFP by the end of this month. But the solicitation probably won't be out for another month, a source close to the procurement said.

ITES-2S is a follow-on to the original ITES program, promoting performance-based contracting that supports the service's enterprise infrastructure goals, Army officials said.

The products and services contract vehicle will run for nine years and the Army expects award eight contracts, four to large businesses and four to businesses having 1,500 employees or fewer.

One of the companies, STG Inc., confirmed it was on the down-select list of 17.

"STG is honored that the Army thinks we're one of the premier small businesses to compete," said David Gardner, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Reston, Va., company.

The Army has said it wants to award the ITES-2S contracts by the end of June, around the same time it awards a contract to integrate services supporting its Army Knowledge Online portal.

The approved bidders are:

• BAE Systems IT of Herndon, Va.



• Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. of McLean, Va.



• Computer Sciences Corp.



• EDS Corp.



• FC Business Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va.



• General Dynamics Network Systems of Needham, Mass.



• IBM Business Consulting Services of Fairfax, Va.



• Information Systems Support Inc. of Gaithersburg, Md.



• Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc. of Seabrook, Md.



• Multimax Inc. of Largo, Md.



• NCI Information Systems Inc. of Reston, Va.



• Northrop Grumman IT of Herndon, Va.



• Pragmatics Inc. of McLean, Va.



• QSS Group Inc. of Lanham, Md.



• Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego



• SETA Corp. of McLean, Va.



• STG Inc. of Reston, Va.