SAIC keeps role as NGA app store broker
By
Ross Wilkers
SAIC has won the recompete of an incumbent contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to run the agency's app store for analysts.
Science Applications International Corp. has retained its role on a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency contract to run an app store for analysts and other users to download software from.
NGA said in a Monday FedBizOpps award notice that it awarded the new “Zeus” contract to SAIC for a $68.6 million ceiling over one base year and up to four individual option years.
Zeus is the successor program to the GEOINT Application Provider Program, which NGA launched in 2015 in partnership with the former Engility Corp. (acquired by SAIC in January) to create a secure environment much like commercial smartphone app stores for Apple or Android devices.
Through this setup, SAIC essentially acts as a broker between the government and commercial app vendors that register their apps in the system for SAIC to test and evaluate them for potential use. If approved, the app then becomes available in NGA’s GEOINT App Store for analysts and other government users to download.
The idea behind IGAPP and now Zeus is to bring new software tools to users within months instead of years through traditional federal acquisition processes. SAIC reports that nearly 30 percent of vendors who participate in the program introduce apps into the store within 30 days and 70 percent within 90 days.
SAIC also says 93 applications have been brokered and downloaded by more than 54,000 users in the U.S. government and allied partners. App developers earn all of the proceeds from downloads.