GSA Releases Phase 2 Proposal for Seat Management

GSA#9463

February 13, 1998
Contact: Hap Connors
(202)501-1231
Wanda Smith
(703)756-4143

WASHINGTON - The U.S. General Services Administration announced today that its Federal Technology Service (FTS) released Phase 2 of its Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Seat Management Program, an outsourcing vehicle designed to provide Federal agencies with integrated desktop computing.

The Phase 2 request, released on February 6, ends in April with the award of FTS Seat Management contracts to private sector companies that responded to the Phase 1 request issued last year. Validation for those proposals focused on mandatory experience requirements and included a competitive range determination.

Wanda Smith, Director of the FTS Seat Management Program Office, said, "This program allows GSA to leverage the expertise and resources of the private sector to benefit Federal managers and ultimately, the taxpayer. We are very pleased with the strong teams put together by the prime contractors."

The Seat Management Program incorporates commercial practices into the Federal government by allowing Federal managers to outsource desktop services more effectively than before. It allows Federal agencies to custom-build "seats" to meet their particular information technology requirements.

"We don't expect an agency's requirements to map directly to the predefined product classes and generic configurations or to the core service bands," said Smith. "We have to keep emphasizing that Seat Management is task order-driven, and not a delivery order contract where a customer orders a number of units of a line item product."

Smith said that FTS is developing a standardized methodology that will help agencies decide to choose the Seat program. FTS officials will soon post an Internet home page for general program information on the program, including desktop outsourcing strategies and issues.