CherryRoad protests Army AKO contract with Lockheed

The contract to consolidate and upgrade the Army Knowledge Online portal is on hold.

CherryRoad Technologies Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., today filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office of the Army's $152 million award to Lockheed Martin Corp. for the management of its enterprise Web portal.

CherryRoad, one of seven incumbent contractors, helped develop and support AKO since 2002.

"We have no comment other than we filed [the] protest and we are confident on our position," said Debbie Yobbs, spokeswoman for CherryRoad.

GAO, which received the filing this morning, said CherryRoad claims the Army misevaluated Lockheed's proposal.

"We are aware of the protest, but we do not generally comment on contract protest matters," said Lockheed spokesman Matt Kramer. "We are honored to have been selected by the Army to lead the AKO Enterprise Services program and we stand ready to support our Army customer."

The Army did not return a call for comment on the protest.

GAO has 100 days to rule on the protest, and then the Army must decide whether to follow the audit agency's recommendations, one of which could be reopening the contract to bidders.

Lockheed Martin, along with Computer Sciences Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. as subcontractors, will provide systems operations and maintenance, network communications, hardware and software integration, and around-the-clock help desk support for both the Non-Classified IP Router Network and the Secret IP Router Network.

The performance-based contract, announced yesterday, is for a base year with six option years.

Jason Miller is an assistant managing editor of Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.