Is history repeating for this $5.5B Air Force IT product contract?

The General Services Administration moved forward last week with a fresh round of awards under its $5.5 billion 2GIT blanket purchase agreement for the Air Force to acquire IT hardware and software products.

Fast forward to this week and a fresh round of protests are in.

GSA made 79 awards for the 2nd Generation IT blanket purchase agreement on Feb. 23. That came about 15 months after it first tried to make awards to 75 companies in November 2019, but those were derailed by protests from disappointed bidders. Corrective actions and amended solicitations followed, then came more protests over those changes.

Eventually, GSA said it would start over and that led to the awards last week.

Now protests have started again -- so it is deja vu all over again?

We’ll have to see. One indicator will be if there are more protests beyond the first two filed by Blue Tech and Counter Trade Products.

This is a return engagement for Blue Tech, which protested after GSA made its first attempt to make 2GIT awards. Counter Trade Products has not filed a protest before involving this contract.

Two notable names that protested during the earlier rounds but still not won spots are Force 3 and CDW Government. We’ll watch to see of those names pop up.

2GIT is a replacement contract for the Air Force’s troubled NetCents 2 IT products vehicle that was also dogged by multiple protests. Turning to GSA was seen as a fresh start for the Air Force.

The BPA is open to all government agencies and can be used to purchase hardware, software and related services.