SEWP V due date expected after Nov. 1

I had this nice snarky blog all written about a notice to nowhere on the FBO.gov site dealing with NASA SEWP V, a $20 billion IT contract.

The due date for proposals for the contract was postponed indefinitely last week because of the government shutdown.

A new FBO notice on Thursday was labeled “Special SEWP V Notice to Industry.” That sounded pretty important to me.

But the link in the notice went to a shuttered NASA webpage, and the emails and phone numbers included in the notice returned only automated responses that they were shutdown.

So, it was a mystery notice, or so I thought.

One NASA person I emailed responded to me, even though her automated response said she was furloughed.

Check the NASA SEWP website, she said.

I did, and there is a little news: The agency will release a new due date for proposals after the government reopens.

“However, we anticipate the due date to be no earlier than November 1, 2013,” the notice states.

That doesn’t exactly fill me with optimism about the shutdown ending soon.

But, to get a little snarky again, why did NASA include a link to nowhere in the first place? This is a $20 billion contract and a must-win for many in the industry, so you know they’ll want to read any notice about it.

Why not put the link to the NASA SEWP webpage in the FBO notice to begin with? Why make us work so hard for it?

Granted, I should know to go to the NASA SEWP site anyway, but NASA sure didn’t make it easy for anyone.