GSA names first group of Polaris small business vehicle selections
Gettyimages.com/ Yuichiro Chino
By
Nick Wakeman
Exactly 100 companies have made the initial cut for the government-wide IT vehicle with three more blocks of awards to come later this year.
The General Services Administration has named a first group of 100 apparent winners of its Polaris contract, a government-wide IT vehicle reserved for small businesses.
With the Thursday release of that list, GSA has opened the door to small business size challenges to these potential winners.
GSA is planning to make awards in four batches, with the general small business group being the first one. Other groups of awards will go to HUBZone, woman-owned, and service-disabled veteran-owned firms.
All told, GSA plans to make at least 300 awards for the Polaris vehicle that has no ceiling.
Polaris replaced the Alliant 2 Small Business vehicle, which it abandoned in 2020 after GSA faced multiple protests and court rulings against the agency. Polaris also has seen its share of pre-award protests.
The naming of the potential small business winners also could lead to another round of protests, but GSA wants disappointed bidders to be patient.
In its announcement, GSA said that protests not related to size would be considered premature at this stage. The agency wants disappointed bidders to wait for debriefings following the contract awards.
GSA wants to finalize awards by the end of the year after any size challenges are resolved.
Polaris will provide agencies a broad range of IT services and solutions. The contract has a focus on innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence, automation, edge computing, and immersive technology.
Performance areas include cloud computing, cybersecurity, data management, and IT and communications technologies.
Other aspects include IT operations and maintenance, software development and systems design, according to solicitation documents.
Click here to download the complete list of Polaris general SB winners.