Confusion about DHS large IT programs may cause avalanche of bids, protests

Talk about flooding the zone: It appears that quite a few large companies who find themselves confused about the best way to respond to a pending DHS procurement may address that confusion by submitting a high number of contract bids and at a later stage protest the results. GovExec reports that bids for DHS Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge procurement are due this Monday. EAGLE is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity acquisition of information technology services falling under five categories. It could last up to seven years and has a maximum value of $45 billion. Language included in the request for proposals is confusing and some bidders may decide to play it safe by submitting more bids, thus increasing the number of responses from an anticipated 500 to 600 to as many as 1,000. DHS will heavily weigh contractors’ past performance when evaluating bids, but will only consider directly attributable experience.-read more in this report; for details about the specific programs, see the Web sites of EAGLE | First Source