General Dynamics again wins DOD's cloud email & collaboration contract
By
Ross Wilkers
General Dynamics IT has again been picked over Perspecta for the DEOS cloud email and collaboration tools contract that now has a $4.4 billion ceiling -- roughly 40 percent lower than the initial value.
General Dynamics IT has been selected yet again for the Defense Department’s other major commercial cloud buy to roll out email and other back-office collaboration software across the DOD enterprise.
The re-awarded Defense Enterprise Office Solutions contract announced Friday has a $4.4 billion ceiling value over up to 10 years that include the initial five-year base period. Dell Marketing LP and Minburn Technology Group are on General Dynamics IT’s team for the effort.
Run by the General Services Administration, the DEOS blanket purchase agreement is for acquiring Microsoft Office 365 tools to use in both unclassified and classified environments.
DEOS has been the subject of at least two protests by rival bidder Perspecta, most recently over an accidental disclosure of pricing information, with each being followed by a corrective action.
GDIT was initially awarded the contract in August 2019, then the award was pulled back for a first corrective action. The pricing disclosure happened during that process, which led Perspecta to file the second protest that was dismissed in June of this year.
We have contacted Perspecta for a response to GSA’s announcement of the re-awarded DEOS contract and will update this story if we hear back. DEOS initially had a $7.6 billion ceiling for the first award attempt, but the re-worked procurement has apparently cut that potential value by almost 42 percent.
“GDIT stands ready to execute this critical work which will provide enterprise-wide visibility and collaboration capabilities across the Department of Defense,” GDIT President Amy Gilliland said in an emailed statement through a spokesman. “The need for DEOS capabilities have been further amplified by the COVID-19 crisis, which has forced agencies to leverage other short-term solutions to support their remote workforces. More than ever, it’s imperative that we accelerate the deployment of technology to support our mission partners.”
Capabilities covered under DEOS include word processing and spreadsheets, email, collaboration, file sharing and storage. GSA used its IT Schedule 70 contract vehicle to award the DEOS effort.
DOD’s other major commercial cloud acquisition JEDI remains the subject of a protest at the Court of Federal Claims by Amazon Web Services, which is claiming that political influence and other errors in that source selection process swung the award to Microsoft.
Both the DEOS and JEDI efforts are well behind their intended schedules for implementation and deployment.