It was a good idea when the Air Force IT Commodity Council mandated twice-yearly buys of PCs, notebooks and other hardware. Following that lead, the Army awarded nine contracts last week for a 10-year, $5 billion procurement.

The project is know as Desktop and Mobile Computing-2 Indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts went to from three large and six small companies.

The large companies are CDW Government of Vernon Hills, Illinois; Dell Computer and Hewlett-Packard. The small-business contracts went to Integration Technologies Group Inc. of Falls Church, Virginia; MPC of Nampa, Idaho; NCS Technologies of Manassas, Virginia and Telos Corporation of Ashburn, Virginia. Also Transource Computer of Phoenix; and Westwood Computer of Springfield, New Jersey. The contracts cover a three-year base period with three two-year options and a one-year option period.

The Army expects the commodity purchases to save money, promote enterprise solutions, enhance interoperability and improve security.

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ANCs have moved aggressively over the past five years to take advantage of Small Business Administration regulations. This allows them to land no-bid government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

That all comes from a draft report being prepared by the Government Accountability Office. According to GCN.com, the report criticizes the SBA and the customer agencies for a poor job of overseeing the contracts. GAO says there's evidence ANCs might be subcontracting too much work. And they might be winning at the expense of other small businesses. Federal contracts to ANC firms in the 8(a) small business program have ballooned. In 2000, they totaled $265 million. By 2004 they'd grown to more than a billion.

Biggest ANC users are Defense, Energy, Interior, State, Transportation, and NASA. GAO found that contracting officers in those agencies frequently failed to comply with SBA rules when it comes to ANCs.

Alaska is said to be melting. Maybe it's because the heat generated by Alaskan Native Corporations.

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Lockheed Martin Corporation has won a $750 million contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency to sustain and support the Defense Message System.

In making the award, DISA was playing it safe. Lockheed has had the original Defense Message System contract, which expires April 30. The new award runs for one base year with nine one-year options.

Washington Technology.com reports, under the so-called sustainment contract, Lockheed will perform system upgrades and conduct technology refreshes. Paul Jorgensen, Lockheed's DMS program manager, said goal is to ensure security layers are in place.

DMS is used by the armed services and Defense agencies to send e-mail at all classification levels. Users can send text messages, maps, drawings, video clips and spreadsheets.

The Electronic System Center out of Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts manages the contract for the Defense Department.

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