HPE fights for another shot at $902M DISA contract

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is fighting back after losing a competition for a $902 million Defense Information Systems Agency contract.

Knight Point Systems LLC was the incumbent and held onto the contract for a second time.

HPE filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office on Feb. 20, four days after award. A decision is due May 31.

Aide from the value of the Communications Capacity Services II contract, what makes this contract and protest stand out some is that this isn’t first protest over it.

Knight Point filed protests to complain about the solicitation before awards were made. The first protest was with DISA, who dismissed it. Then the company filed a protest with GAO, who denied it.

Knight Point claimed it would be disadvantage because DISA dropped two out of five technical and management subfactors. The company also objected to the elimination of pricing notes in the proposals.

These changes were made as amendments after the solicitation was released.

But while Knight Point lost its pre-award protest it still came out as the winner, at least to this point.

At the time of the protest, the solicitation had been amended 13 times. There were a few more amendments after the Sept. 20 protest decision against Knight Point.

At a $902 million price tag over 10 years, the contract is definitely a prize for any company.

Reston, Virginia-based Knight Point first won the work in 2011 to provide hardware and software equipment such as routers, switches, appliances, monitoring equipment, and reporting software. The contract can be used across DOD.

The changes that Knight Point objected to indicated that DISA wants the contract to move toward more of an “as a service” type of contract.