Special Operations Command moves ahead on $600M analytics contract

The U.S. Special Operations Command continues to make progress on its plan to field a $600 million contract for a global analytics platform.

But if you haven’t responded to the request for information yet, you’ll probably find yourself on the outside looking in, at least as a prime. The deadline for responses is July 31 and if you don’t respond, you won’t be able to participate in any one-on-one meetings with the command when it holds an industry day.

The industry day is not yet scheduled.

As we reported earlier, the command is looking to field a global analytics platform that combines several capabilities into a single architecture. SOCOM has a need to analyze large volumes of data within a suite of secure-web-applications.

Some of the capabilities to be brought together include analytics, collaboration and visualization; entity resolution services; information acquisition, processing and access services; and persistent query and alerting services.

SOCOM's request for information indicated that the contract will be broken into two lots. One will be for development and systems upgrades and improvements. Lot two is for operational systems maintenance and sustainment support.

A final solicitation will likely come out sometime in fiscal year 2021.

In the last couple weeks, SOCOM has released several sets of Q&A based on questions it has received so far.

SOCOM interestingly says there is an incumbent it calls “a major defense contractor,” but the command said it cannot disclose the name of the company.

“This is not a follow on to a current contract and would require a transition plan,” the command wrote in the Q&A.

The industry day will be planned after the close of the request for information. Responses to the RFI will be used to develop the industry day.