Industry has been waiting for the General Services Administration to drop the final request for proposals on the Alliant 2 vehicles — GSA’s IT services governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs) — and hearing little but rumors for months.
John Cavadias, procurement contracting officer on Alliant 2, attempts to clear up some misconceptions in a new blog post on GSA’s Interact site.
“There has been much speculation in recent months heard from the information technology services industry and seen in the press concerning the official release of the General Services Administration Alliant 2 and Alliant 2 Small Business GWAC Request for Proposals,” he wrote. “In an effort to communicate to industry and other interested parties with an acceptable degree of transparency on the status of this pending procurement, I am providing this unofficial announcement to addresses some of those questions.”
The current Alliant and Alliant Small Business contracts — with a combined ceiling of $50 billion — are set to expire in 2019. Alliant 2 and Alliant 2SB will follow on with an expected ceiling of $65 billion.
Contractors should take particular note of two of the questions and responses:
Saved the best for last
Cavadias answered what was probably the most anticipated question last: When are the final RFPs expected?
As of now there’s no change in the timeline, he wrote, with both the unrestricted and small business solicitations on track for the second half of June.
Don’t get ahead of yourself
Cavadias said vendors have been asking whether to use the draft solicitation templates to start preparing for the final RFPs this summer — a bad idea in his assessment.
“It is absolutely not recommended,” he wrote, noting the PCOs “have frequently cautioned industry that a [draft RFP] is for market research and that the probability of significant changes made from DRFPs to the official RFPs is very high.”
