Small businesses see success with SEWP

NASA awarded 45 information technology governmentwide acquisition contracts yesterday to 37 vendors, half of which are small businesses.

Contractors for the fourth installment of SEWP, now known as Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement, went to 23 small businesses ? six of which are owned by service-disabled veterans, according to NASA.

Companies can earn as much as $5.6 billion per contract, NASA said.

"I have my own meaning [of the SEWP acronym]: success every way possible," said Alan Bechara, president of PC Mall Gov.

A division of PC Mall Gov, GMRI, listed as a minority-owned small business, received a contract for mass storage servers. GMRI has been with SEWP since its first installment. PC Mall Gov acquired GMRI in 2006.

SEWP IV offers federal agencies advanced technology such as computer systems and servers, network equipment and storage devices.

Because agencies need large storage servers, GMRI could make millions of dollars annually from SEWP IV. Bechara said he is ecstatic about the announcement.

Unisys earned its two incumbent contracts of storage servers and database servers. Unisys has held a SEWP contract since the initial installment. But the company branched out to high-end networking. It was the first time the corporation had attempted to capture the SEWP networking contract.

SEWP I, II and III were known as the Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement GWAC, but NASA changed the name March 26.

The new meaning evokes two key elements of the SEWP contracts: IT product solutions and a program infrastructure that can support contracts for agencywide procurements, according to NASA SEWP.

Although the contracts still focus on supporting NASA's scientific and engineering missions, the complex IT products reach many other disciplines, the agency said.

Matthew Weigelt is a reporter with Federal Computer Week, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.