NetCents gets another extension
By
Nick Wakeman
Air Force needs more time as NetCents contract suffers delays.
The Air Force is asking for another extension for its $10 billion NetCents contract as it weathers delays to getting a new contract in place.
The service wants to push back the ordering period for the IT services contract to March 29, 2013. The contract was set to expire on Sept. 10, 2012. That date was established after the Air Force asked for an earlier extension to be the contract beyond its original September 2011 expiration.
The move means that the eight incumbents can continue to market and sell services through the contract. As of March 2012, $8.7 billion in orders had gone through the contract. In April, the Air Force requested a ceiling expansion so that another $1 billion in work could flow through the contract.
With the latest extension, the Air Force said it wants a ceiling of $9.95 billion to keep the work going on the contract until NetCents 2 is up and running.
While portions of NetCents 2 have been awarded, the large business services contract is still in source selection, and the Air Force has had redo its NetCents products contract because of bid protests.
The Air Force said it needs the extension of time there can be a transition period between NetCents and NetCents 2. “Without this ceiling increase, solutions being implemented may result in non-standards based contracts and conflict with [Air Force] and [Defense Department] vision and policy for standard, secure and interoperable architectures across the various Mission Areas,” the Air Force said in its notice.
The existing NetCents contractors are the Centech Group, Harris Corp., Northrop Grumman, NCI Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Telos Corp.
The NetCents contract is used by the Air Force to manage its IT portfolio and to make sure its IT investments adhere to standards of the Global Information Grid, ConstellationNet, Infostructure Technology Reference Model, Joint Technical Architecture (now the DoD Information Technology Standards and Profile Registry (DISR) Online), and other Defense Department technical architecture standards.