Navy RFP kicks off NGEN-R competition

The Navy has released the final solicitation for the next iteration of the hardware portion of the service branch's Next Generation Enterprise Network.

On the heels of the release of this request for proposals for the NGEN End User Hardware contract, incumbent prime Perspecta released a statement from their CEO that indicates their intent to pursue the contract as a prime.

“Now that the NGEN-R competition is officially underway, Perspecta is ready to earn its position to lead the transition and modernization of the Department of the Navy’s largest IT network,” CEO Mac Curtis said in the statement.

Perspecta is the prime thanks to a series of acquisitions and mergers that date back to the original award for the NGEN contract – then known as the Navy Marine Corps Intranet – by Electronic Data Systems in 2000. This will be the third iteration of the massive networking contract.

The new RFP covers the end-user hardware portion of the contract and is valued at $250 million by Deltek. The RFP for the services portion is pending and has an estimated value of $3.5 billion.

In addition to Perspecta, other competitors include Leidos, which has tapped IBM, Unisys and Verizon as teammates, and General Dynamics after its acquisition of CSRA.

Responses to the end-user hardware solicitation are due Nov. 19 at 10 a.m.

In this contract, the Navy wants to move toward a hardware-as-a-service model that will support 400,000 devices and 600,000 users in the continental United States as well as Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. It also will cover sites in Germany, Japan, Korea, Guam, Australia and Bahrain. It covers classified and unclassified networks.

The second part of NGEN-R is more lucrative and covers service management, integration and transport.

Perspecta recently received a $787.3 million extension on its current contract that pushes its expiration to Sept. 30, 2019. And there also is a possibility of another extension until May 31, 2020. This should give the Navy enough time to work through the procurement, any protests and have a transition period from the old contract to the new.

In addition to its high dollar value, the NGEN-R contract is seen as a prime vehicle for IT modernization and as such the Navy is competing it as a best value contract. This is different than the contract that Perspecta currently holds which was a lowest price, technically acceptable competition.

As a best value competition, the companies are pushing their ability to innovate and bring fresh solutions to the Navy.

Perspecta has been touting its intellectual property, partnerships and experience. Leidos also has cited its experience managing large IT networks at the Defense Department, NASA and elsewhere. Through its Lockheed Martin IS&GS acquisition, Leidos also has been a teammate to Perspecta on the current contract.

Before its acquisition by GD, CSRA competed for the current NGEN contract against what was then known as HP Enterprise Services, which later became DXC Technologies, whose public sector business was merged with Vencore and KeyPoint Government Solutions to form Perspecta.

CSRA also touts its experience managing large dynamic IT networks.

All of the companies also have depth in areas such as cloud computing and other next generation IT through networks of partnerships with commercial technology companies.

With the extension of the contract, Perspecta has more time to integrate its three-way merger, which should help the company. Likewise for GD and its acquisition of CSRA. Leidos is two years past its acquisition of Lockheed Martin IS&GS.

So presumably integration distractions shouldn’t be a factor for any of the companies.

Right now, this contract will be hard to handicap but fun to follow.