Alliant 2 is now open for contractors after the GOA dismisses the protests over the contract rules and point system for awarding

The $50 billion Alliant 2 IT contract has moved forward with evaluations and awards for the General Services Administration after several protests were denied against it. On Wednesday, the head of GSA’s IT office, Mary Davie, tweeted:

“We had a few protests on Alliant 2 on several issues,” “They have all been dismissed. We are proceeding with evaluations and award.”

The first Alliant IT contract was launched in 2007 to meet the everchanging IT needs of federal agencies on one full-range vehicles.

Some IT companies found issue with the details of the arrangement. It was protested “that the RFP’s evaluation scheme is improper, that the agency is unreasonably assigning certain points to small businesses, and that limiting the number of awardees to 60 will not result in competition at the task order level,” to the Government Accountability Office by IT contractors based in Northern Virginia such as Enterprise Information Services, Buchanan & Edwards, Sevatec and InfoReliance Corporation.

However, GAO found the protests unfounded, as summarized by FedScoop:

On the evaluation scheme: It’s “impermissible for failing to properly consider price is denied; the Federal Acquisition Regulation permits agencies to use any one or a combination of source selection approaches to obtain the best value.”
On the assignment of points to small businesses: “[T]he protesters have not shown that the agency’s allocation of points is unreasonable, or otherwise alleged that the agency is engaging in improper disparate treatment.”
On limiting awardees to 60: “Record shows that the agency intends to award approximately 60 contracts, and has taken other steps to encourage competition at the task order level.”

Base period of performance will be 5 years with an option for 5 year extension and a maximum of $50 billion all in for Alliant 2 contracts.