4 Teams to Compete in USAID Project

The U.S. Agency for International Development, seeking to update and consolidate its technology purchasing, awarded contracts to four teams of companies that will compete for up to $300 million in work over the next five years.

USAID announced winners of the blanket purchase agreements in an internal memo last week. The Principal Resource for Information Management Enterprise-wide 3.4 contracts -- known as Prime 3.4 -- will be used by the agency to buy a range of information technology services, including system maintenance, modernization and Internet development support.

Two of the teams are led by large businesses and two by small businesses. The large business teams are led by BearingPoint Inc. of McLean and SRA International Corp. of Fairfax. The small businesses are AINS Inc. of Rockville and Development Infostructure, or Devis, of Arlington.

"The PRIME 3.4 vehicle will be the main mechanism for modernizing USAID as it integrates more closely with the State Department," Martin Hudson, Devis vice president, said in an e-mail.

Federal procurement regulations specify several procedures for measuring companies eligible to receive small-business set-asides. The two small-business prime contractors chosen in this procurement probably will reap a greater share of the profits from each task order they win than their subcontractors, some of which are very large businesses. The prime contractors will also direct and allocate the work they win among their subcontractors.

The AINS team includes ASIS Inc. of Falls Church; American Systems Corp. of Chantilly; Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif.; Oracle Corp. of Redwood Shores, Calif.; and Pillar Systems Corp. of Alexandria.

Devis is teamed with Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa.

BearingPoint's team includes Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles; International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y.; CACI International Inc. of Arlington; and Compusearch Software Systems of Dulles.

SRA is leading a team that includes PricewaterhouseCoopers of New York; Pro-Telligent LLC of Arlington; Sysmatics.com LLC of Goldendale, Wash.; Customer Value Partners of Fairfax; Delta Solutions Inc.; Infoterra USA of Arlington; Pillar Systems Corp. of Alexandria; Compusearch Software Systems Inc. of Sterling, and TKC Communications of Fairfax.

Prime 3.4 follows the Prime 3.2 contracts awarded earlier in May. Prime 3.2 involved mostly infrastructure services and could total $4 billion over five years. An additional procurement for information technology security, Prime 3.3, has not been acted on.

The Prime 3 series of contracts in part consolidates work that had been awarded via sole-source contracts in an effort to get USAID better prices and terms for its information technology work.

USAID said it might extend the Prime 3.4 contracts beyond the initial five-year period to meet its needs for IT support.

Wilson P. Dizard III is a senior writer with Government Computer News. For news on this and other contracts go tohttp://www.gcn.com.