Protest clock ticking for losing OASIS bidders

First, let me apologize for the glitch in my story yesterday on the OASIS awards, and then the e-letter alert we sent out. Both had broken links to a listing of the contract winners.

But all the links are fixed now.

So, what do we know about OASIS beyond the fact that 74 companies won 224 awards across seven pools of professional services?

Obviously, companies won in multiple pools, but only six companies won in all the pools: Battelle Memorial Institute, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos Inc., Lockheed Martin, Science Applications International Corp. and Northrop Grumman.

Twenty-eight companies only won in a single pool.

Pool 1 has 42 awards, followed by Pool 2 with 23. Pool 3 weighs in with 41 and Pool 4 has 40. Pool 5 is split into two parts: part A has 20 contracts, and part B has 21. And finally, pool 6 has 37.

I’ve moved the list of companies from the General Services Administration’s PDF format into an Excel spreadsheet that you can down load here. You can sort by contract pool, company name or location. And since it is a spreadsheet, you can add any other information you want to it.

We’re making this available only to WT Insider members.

Now that the awards have been made, the inevitable question remains about bid protests: Will there be any, and what will the impact be?

I’ve confirmed only one company so far that bid and lost, and that’s Hewlett-Packard Co., but it isn’t clear whether they will protest.

"HP is reviewing the agency's award announcement," was the statement I received from Marilyn Crouther, senior vice president and general manager of HP Enterprise Services, public sector group.

I have feelers out to other companies that were absent from the list of winners. I’ll file updates if I learn any of them are disappointed bidders.

And of course, we’ll be checking the Government Accountability Office website for any filings that might come through.

GSA seems to be trying to warn off protesters. In its notice of awards, the agency said it will provide a written debrief with its notification to losing bidders. If they are unsatisfied, GSA wants them to reach out to the contracting office before filing a protest with GAO.

If the pattern is similar to the small-business OASIS awards, then we’ll see some protests but not a lot, and GSA is likely to stick to its awards decisions.

There are nine pending protests of the small business awards, and so far, GSA has not offered to take a corrective action and is instead letting the GAO process move forward. Decisions on those protests are due in about a month.

GSA seems to be very confident in their decision, so I’m expecting GAO to deny the protests.

If a similar pattern holds with the large business awards, we might see OASIS up and running by the end of the summer, and that’s pretty much a record for a large multiple award contract in today’s market.

Maybe soon we’ll be asking about when the first task orders – and revenue – will be rolling out.