State moves ahead on small biz contract

The State Department has decided that its five-year, $300 million contract for IT support services will be a small-business competition, and it will issue the request for proposals in May instead of March, according to federal market research firm Input Inc.

The State Department's contracting office is working on the statement of work for the multiple award contract, according to Input of Reston, Va. The agency has yet to decide whether the procurement will be 8(a) awards, Hubzone awards or a combination of both. The contracting office will post this information on the FedBizOpps Web site at www.fedbizopps.gov in the near future, Input said.

The new contract will be for one year with four one-year options. Incumbents on the current contract are Alphainsight Corp., Computer & Hi-Tech Management Inc., Creative Technology Inc., Enterprise Information Services Inc. and Multimax Inc.

The current contract expires in November, when the new contract is expected to be issued. Vendors will supply personnel and other services for systems and software analysis and development; document analysis; development of systems design documents; computer programming; computer center operations; configuration management; software management, testing and troubleshooting; computer security; technical writing; training; and word processing.