Teaming Required for New GWAC Small businesses will have to form teams to compete for a piece of GSA’s proposed Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract, says the procuring contracting officer, Bill Archambeault. Alliant, still in the planning stages, is intended to be the successor to six existing information technology GWACs that will expire by 2007. In an interview, Archambeault said he intends to award five contracts to what he calls coalitions of small businesses and 15 contracts to large businesses. Each contract will cover a full range of IT solutions, from systems design to training, satellite telecommunications and cybersecurity. A single small firm is not likely to offer the full range of capabilities. He said he will set a goal of awarding 25% of task orders to small businesses. In addition, large businesses will be required to set small business subcontracting goals of 30% to 40%. Alliant will be a 15-year contract worth up to $150 billion. Archambeault said he hopes to release the RFP in June and make awards in mid-2005. Two industry days are planned: Feb. 18 in Oakland, CA, and March 29 in Washington. Archambeault, who is based at GSA’s Pacific Rim Region GWAC Center in San Diego, said he will meet with SBA officials soon to determine how the coalitions must be set up to satisfy the agency’s rules on teaming arrangements and joint ventures. He is also preparing to submit a business case to the Office of Management and Budget, which must sign off on the new contract. The Alliant GWAC was created after GSA’s Contract Vehicle Review Board recommended eliminating some GWACs that seemed to duplicate other multiple award contracts. Alliant will assume some of the requirements of the Millennia, Applications ’N Support for Widely Diverse End-User Requirements (ANSWER), Access Certificates for Electronic Services (ACES), Disaster Recovery, SmartCards and Virtual Data Center GWACs. Information about Alliant is available at www.gsa.gov/alliant. A pre-solicitation proposal is due to be issued shortly and Archambeault said more details will be added to the website after that.