Computer Sciences Corp. [CSC] and Harris Corp. [HRS] filed protests Monday against the Navy’s decision to award the contract for its next-generation intranet known as NGEN to Hewlett-Packard [HP].
The two firms, who had partnered in their proposal for the Next Generation Enterprise Network program, filed separate protests with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) challenging the decision, said Ralph White, the head of GAO’s bid protest office.
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| Photo by U.S. Navy |
GAO will make a determination on whether to uphold or reject the protests by Oct. 23. The filing of a protest requires the government to issue a stop-work order to the winning firm, but it was unclear as to whether that had occurred by press time.
NGEN is the follow-on program to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) and is meant to provide secure, net-centric data and services to 800,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel and connects to 400,000 workstations.
The Navy awarded the contract with an initial value of $320 million to HP on June 28. If all options are exercised during the five-year contract, its total value will reach $3.5 billion.
Harris and CSC were equally partnered in competing for two aspects of the NGEN program: enterprise services and transport services. HP, the prime contractor of NMCI, won both in the lowest-price, technically-acceptable (LPTA) solicitation.
NGEN has experienced several delays in recent years. At the time of the award the Navy said the transition from NMCI to NGEN would be months later than the planned April 2014 timeframe. A stop-work order prompted by the protest could further impact the transition period.
The Navy in June issued a continuity of services contract to HP valued at $680 million to keep NMCI operating through the transition and into June 2014.
NMCI is largest intranet in the U.S. government and began in 2000 under a contract with Electronic Data Systems, which HP acquired in 2008.
Also on the Harris-CSC team are General Dynamics [GD] and Verizon Communications [VZ]. HP group includes Northrop Grumman [NOC], IBM [IBM], AT&T [T] and Lockheed Martin [LMT].
Harris is currently a subcontractor on NMCI.