Small business | In brief

The Homeland Security Department anticipates announcing in July the winners of FirstSource, a $3 billion small-business IT contract to help the department integrate and standardize its IT systems and tools, a spokesman said.Touted as a companion to the five-year, $45 billion Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (Eagle) contract for IT support services ? which was awarded last week ? FirstSource has been delayed several times.The contract was put out for bid Nov. 18, and the proposal due dates and contract award dates have been reset several times since.Eagle also has a small-business component, and DHS has said it anticipates making those contract awards in July. The department has set a goal of awarding 40 percent of Eagle contracts to small businesses.FirstSource is a five-year, small-business set-aside contract for companies with a maximum of 150 employees.Both FirstSource and Eagle are indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts meant to furnish DHS with interoperable IT solutions.The Veterans Affairs Department, as part of a major IT process and systems transformation, said it will buy up to $365 million worth of Microsoft Corp. software from MicroTech LLC, Vienna, Va.MicroTech, a service-disabled, veteran-owned, 8(a) Hispanic-owned small business, signed a one-year, $56 million contract to supply VA with software and services from Microsoft.The contract has five one-year options, which would boost its potential value to $360 million to $365 million over six years, the company said.Terms of the contract give VA an enterprise license for a range of Microsoft business software products, which will be used on VA's 250,000 workstations and 9,000 Microsoft Windows servers.MicroTech President and CEO Tony Jimenez said that although federal government agencies have struggled to meet their mandated goal of awarding 3 percent of all federal prime contracts to service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses, VA's contracting policies were opening more doors for such companies.