Air Force makes $5.8B in NetCents awards

Twelve companies have won Air Force NetCents 2 contracts for network operation and infrastructure solutions.

The awards were made under a small business competition that pulled in 29 bids.

The winning companies are:

• The Centech Group Inc., Falls Church, Va., (contract number: FA8732-14-D-0010)
• Epsilon Systems Solutions Inc., San Diego, (FA8732-14-D-0011)
• Smartronix Inc., Hollywood, Md., (FA8732-14-D-0012)
• SMS Data Products Group Inc., McLean, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0013)
• Indus Corp., Vienna, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0014)
• Technica Corp., Sterling, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0015)
• Telos Corp., Ashburn, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0016)
• Sumaria Systems Inc., Danvers, Mass., (FA8732-14-D-0017)
• BTAS Inc., Beavercreek, Ohio, (FA8732-14-D-0018)
• American Systems Corp., Chantilly, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0019)
• STG, Inc., Reston, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0020)
• MicroTechnologies LLC, Vienna, Va., (FA8732-14-D-0021)

The companies will compete for task orders to provide a variety of services and solutions around network operations, enterprise services and infrastructure development and operations and network management and defense. Other services include service oriented architecture infrastructure, enterprise level security management and operations and telephony infrastructure and services.

The contract has a three-year base and four 12 month options, for a total of seven years. The contract mandatory for the Air Force and can also be used by the Army, Navy, Defense Department and civilian agencies.

Those are the basics of the contract, but here are some other items to consider.

Protests are likely given the history of the NetCents program, which has been slammed by multiple protests when the Air Force has made awards in other categories. The fact that 12 awards were made out of 29 bids also increases the likelihood of protests.

The small business size standard is interesting here because several of the winners would not generally be considered small businesses, but rather midsize businesses such as American Systems Corp., Telos Corp., STG Inc. and MicroTech. But I should note that with telephony included as one of the primary services under the contract, it pulls in a much larger small business standard that is based on the number of employees and not revenue.

The length of time from solicitation to award is worth noting: The request for proposals came out in September 2010. Proposals were due November 2010. Revised proposals were filed November 2012. I know the Air Force is trying to get it right, but that’s a long march and we probably haven’t gotten to the end of it, depending on what happens with the protests.

More NetCents awards are coming. The Air Force released a schedule in February (thank you Deltek) that says the awards for the applications services portion will come in April and the full and open awards for network operations will come in November.

Watch this space.