Harris joins NetCents II protests

Harris Corp. has joined the list of protestors objecting to the Air Force’s most recent award decisions for its $6.9 billion NetCents II Products contract.

Harris is a little later than the others, filing its protest with the Government Accountability Office on Sept. 16. The other seven protestors filed between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6. Decisions on the protests are due in December.

The Air Force announced its award decision on Aug. 26, when it added eight more winners to the eight winners it had picked in April. That still left eight companies without contracts, and now all eight have filed protests.

The NetCents II Products contract has now gone through three rounds of awards and three rounds of multiple companies filing protests. After rounds one and two, the Air Force pulled back its awards and said it would rethink its decision.

One thing that has irked the losing companies in round three is that the Air Force didn’t ask for new proposals, but just picked the next eight lowest bidders.

In its source selection decision document, the Air Force said that in reviewing its decision a substantive corrective action wasn’t needed. It added more companies out of fairness to companies that won in round one, but lost in round two. It didn't make much sense to me, either.

Obviously, the Air Force’s reasoning hasn’t satisfied the losing bidders, but the Air Force this time is sticking to the decision, and will let the protest process run its course. It’ll be good to see what an unbiased body – GAO – has to say about the Air Force’s processes and reasoning in this case.

While the protests are pending, no work will flow through the contract. It has stumbled along for years now, and with some many other vehicles to pick from, it’s probably time to pull the plug, but it is doubtful the Air Force would do that.

As a reminder, the protesting companies are:

• Harris IT Services
• Sterling Computers Corp.
• Insight Public Sector
• Presidio Networked Solutions
• Force 3 Inc.
• PCMG
• Dell Federal Systems
• FCN Inc.

The winners are:

• Ace Technology Partners LLC, Arlington Heights, Ill.
• Blue Tech, Inc., San Diego
• CDW Government LLC, Vernon Hills, Ill.
• CounterTrade Products Inc., Arvada, Colo.
• FedStore Corp., Rockville, Md.
• General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, Va.
• Global Technology Resources Inc., Denver
• immix Technology Inc., McLean, Va.
• Intelligent Decisions Inc., Ashburn, Va.
• Integration Technologies Group, Falls Church, Va.
• Iron Bow Technologies LLC, Chantilly, Va.
• M2 Technology, San Antonio
• MicroTech, Vienna, Va.
• Red River Computer Co., Claremont, N.H.
• Unicom Government Inc., Herndon, Va. (formerly GTSI)
• World Wide Technology, Inc., Maryland Heights, Mo.