Increasingly the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are looking to “other transaction authority” agreements to acquire emerging technologies. Procurements made under OTA are exempt from many Federal Acquisition Regulation rules and are typically limited to research, prototypes and in certain cases follow-on production.
The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is going to be doing significantly less small business contracts after the National Background Investigations Bureau moves from the Office of Personnel Management to DOD.
Source: Small business cuts coming amid NBIB merger — Defense Systems
The Navy has posted the final solicitation for the services portion of its much-anticipated, multibillion dollar NGEN contract to help run and upgrade the branch’s IT networks also used by the Marine Corps.
Source: Navy issues NGEN services recompete — Defense Systems
The Navy is ready to proceed on formally kicking off the competition for the services piece of its main IT network contract and has set a date for when the final RFP will drop.
Source: Navy: Final NGEN services solicitation coming soon — Defense Systems
The Section 809 Panel, established to find ways to streamline and improve the defense acquisition process, has advocated for drastic changes, primarily by empowering acquisition leaders to make buying and hiring decisions and boosting funding to train civilian acquisition workers, according to its latest report.
Source: Can you really fix DOD acquisitions in a week? — Defense Systems
In government contracting, it is a truism that significant challenges to the status quo invariably create pushback. But the status quo in government IT is inertia, and in a world of constantly evolving cyber threats, this creates greater risks and vulnerabilities. Our enemies in cyberspace are not standing still. Why should federal agencies?
Source: The misguided campaign to undermine OTAs and innovation — Defense Systems
In the wake of Oracle’s successful protest of a $950 million “other transaction authority” award by the Army to REAN Cloud, House appropriators are putting the Defense Department on notice that they’ll be keeping a close eye on future OTA awards.
Source: OTA comes under increased scrutiny — Defense Systems
Fourteen companies have won positions on the full-and-open portion of a potential 10-year, $7.5 billion contract for systems engineering and technical services to the Defense Information Services Agency.
The Navy on June 1 unveiled the final solicitation for the next iteration of its massive SeaPort contracting vehicle for professional services.
Source: Navy seeks bids for next SeaPort version — Defense Systems
General Dynamics and its now-acquired CSRA business will divest a systems engineering and acquisition support services business in order to mitigate any potential organizational conflicts-of-interest.
Source: Seaport-e to see changes after General Dynamics-CSRA acquisition — Defense Systems