Carahsoft, Telos excluded from ITES-3H contract

Carahsoft Technology Corp. and Telos Corp. have both been excluded from the final round of competition for the $5 billion Army ITES-3H contract, and they aren't too happy about it.

As I reported Friday, Carahsoft filed a protest on Thursday, but I didn’t have confirmation on why. I have that confirmation now, and the company was not picked to move on in the competition.

Telos filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office on Friday for the same reason.

The Army is running a two-phase competition for contract for software, hardware and related services. About 50 companies submitted proposals for phase one, during which the Army cut the competitors to a smaller number for the final phase

The expectation is that the Army will pick eight primes: four large businesses and four small.

Carahsoft and Telos join Dell, iGov and Technology Integration Group as bidders who failed to make the cut to the final round.

Dell is the most surprising as it is an incumbent on ITES-2H and has won nearly $700 million in task orders since 2007, according to Deltek.

Carahsoft also is a surprise given its success in recent years as a value-added reseller.

At this stage, no one is talking about the reasoning behind the Army’s decisions. We’ll know more as the protest process goes forward, especially if it goes all the way to the end, and GAO issues a decision.

That decision is due by mid-November. The Army isn’t expected to make awards for ITES-3H until spring of 2015.