NOAA to seek consolidated IT support services

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to release a request for proposals for a six-year, consolidated IT support services contract by the end of September.

"I very much would like to have it by the end of the fiscal year," said Carl Staton, NOAA CIO and director of high-performance computing and communications, at an event sponsored by the Industry Advisory Council July 22. Staton could not give an estimated value for the contract.

The Commerce Department agency will seek IT services for help desk, seat management, Web programming and development, network operations center, e-mail operations and other services supporting the IT infrastructure.

NOAA is in the process of developing the necessary documentation to meet administrative requirements and refining the scope of the contract, he added.

The contract will be competed under the Commerce Information Technology Services Next Generation, a small-business, governmentwide acquisition IT contract put in place last year. Under COMMITS NexGen, contractors are divided into three tiers based on the size of their revenues and the size of the task order. A vendor, however, can choose to take on larger businesses outside COMMITS as partners for certain activities.