Unisys dropped from Phase 2 TSA infrastructure contract

Unisys Corp. has been dropped from the selection list for Phase
2 of the Transportation Security Administration's Information
Technology Infrastructure Program (ITIP) contract. The Blue Bell,
Pa., company formerly was lead contractor on the project.

"Unisys Federal Systems has not been selected to continue on to
Phase 2 of the [ITIP] procurement," company spokesman Brad
Bass said in a statement today. "We are disappointed by the
selection committee's decision and are now reviewing our
options."

Contractors that qualified for the next phase are Computer
Sciences Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp. and
CACI International Inc. as a subcontractor to CSC.

Announcements on Lockheed Martin's and General
Dynamics' Web sites said the contract award is due between
Aug. 29 and Sept. 12.

ITIP is a follow-on award to the $1 billion IT Managed Services
contract from the Homeland Security Department to modernize
TSA's networks and infrastructure.

Unisys held the contract from its inception in 2002 until 2006
and then won a bridge contract to extend the work through 2008. But
a congressional inquiry concluded that Unisys failed to properly
install and manage intrusion-detection systems on the networks. The
inquiry also alleged that to cover its neglect, Unisys falsely
certified to DHS that the networks had been protected.

"Our performance on the current TSA program is
excellent," Bass said. "We are meeting our performance
baselines in all 18 service-level agreements on the contract and
are exceeding them in 13 of those areas."

Bass added that Unisys was instrumental in creating and managing
the IT infrastructure that enabled TSA to be mission-ready by
November 2002. "Since then, Unisys has supported TSA in its
efforts to improve protection of passengers, cargo, people and
physical assets at airports and ensure public trust in TSA's
security operations."

Unisys, of Blue Bell, Pa., ranks No. 26 on Washington Technology's 2008 Top 100 list.