GAO decision for Encore II dispute under review

The Government Accountability Office has sustained a protest filed by Computer Sciences Corp., Unisys, Northrop Grumman and IBM Business Consulting Services against the Defense Information Systems Agency's Encore II contract award.

A GAO report on the decision, which sources say was made on May 10, has been placed under a protective order because it contains proprietary and sensitive information.

DISA spokesman Michael Thiem said yesterday agency officials are currently reviewing the document. "Upon completion of this review, [DISA] will be working to fully implement the recommendations contained in the GAO report," he said.

DISA awarded the Encore II large-business contract Jan. 26 to Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International, EDS, Lockheed Martin, Science Applications International Corp. and SRA International. The agency intends to use the contract to support users during the transition to a major DISA program, Net-Centric Enterprise Services. Under that program, the Defense Department is creating a departmentwide Web portal for accessing knowledge databases and collaboration tools.

Three of the protesting companies ? CSC, Unisys and Northrop Grumman ? were on DISA's Encore I but failed to win a place on the follow-on contract. Public versions of the CSC and Unisys protests state that DISA failed to evaluate the bids properly.

A redacted version of the GAO decision report is expected to be made public in the next few weeks.

Sebastian Sprenger writes for Federal Computer Week, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.