ARLINGTON, Virginia (September 5, 2006) – Development InfoStructure (Devis), a leading provider of information technology for eGovernment, today announced that the Court of Federal Claims has decided that the General Services Administration (GSA) must vacate its $17.4 million award to Symplicity corporation to develop and run the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) Web portal. The ruling follows a successful protest by Devis and another vendor that identified inadequacies in some areas of the evaluation process. The Court concluded that GSA will have to re-award the contract based on the proposals originally submitted. These submissions include the proposal offered by Devis, whose technical response was ranked highest by GSA.
FedBizOpps, managed by GSA, is the single point-of-entry to announce and award all Federal procurement opportunities. Using FedBizOpps, commercial vendors can search, monitor and retrieve contracting opportunities posted by government buyers. Devis was one of several vendors that responded to the FedBizOpps solicitation, which calls for the development of an improved system to be securely maintained and operated for an eight-year period. The Devis proposal included as subcontractors Jefferson Consulting Group of Washington, D.C., and SRA International of Fairfax, VA.
In July 2005, after an extensive evaluation process, Symplicity was awarded the contract. Devis immediately filed an administrative protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) seeking clarification on what were believed to be mandatory requirements. The incumbent FedBizOpps contractor, Information Science Corporation (ISC), then filed protest in the Court of Federal Claims resulting in the dismissal of the GAO action when the Court took jurisdiction over the protest. In order to participate in the protest, Devis joined plaintiff ISC in these more time consuming and expensive legal proceedings as an "intervenor."
"We're pleased that our concerns with the FedBizOpps award decision have been validated by the Court, and that the highly rated Devis proposal for this government-wide resource was recognized," said Rob Ryland, Devis Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. "The record clearly shows that a series of unfortunate events derailed what was otherwise a fair competition with excellent and detailed technical work by GSA evaluators."
"We are encouraged by Judge Braden's remedy," said Peter Gallagher, president of Devis. "The delays in this procurement have been very difficult for us, and we are happy that this legal roadblock is now behind us. We believe that GSA did great work technically evaluating the proposed solutions, and the Court's confirmation that those evaluations are still valid gives us hope that the procurement will be quickly brought to a conclusion. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with GSA to help make the Federal procurement system stronger."
About Development InfoStructure (Devis)
Development InfoStructure (Devis) was founded in 1992 to provide innovative, practical approaches to information management. Devis is a leading provider of IT Consulting services and solutions to Federal, State, and Local Governments as well as the international development community. Devis' standards-based, vendor-independent approach and active support of the open source community help maximize the return on clients' IT investments.
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