PTO prepares RFP for desktop, portable PCs
Connecting state and local government leaders
Patent and Trademark Office officials this week will release a desktop PC request for proposals tailored to small-business contractors with 100 or fewer employees. PTO posted a Commerce Business Daily Online announcement at www.cbdnet.access.gpo.gov on April 27 for the Desktop Acquisition contract, known as DART. Through the buy, PTO will buy desktop and portable computers, printers and other peripherals. The agency has 8,000 PCs.
Patent and Trademark Office officials this week will release a desktop PC request for
proposals tailored to small-business contractors with 100 or fewer employees.
PTO posted a Commerce Business Daily Online announcement at www.cbdnet.access.gpo.gov
on April 27 for the Desktop Acquisition contract, known as DART. Through the buy, PTO will
buy desktop and portable computers, printers and other peripherals. The agency has 8,000
PCs.
Small businesses designated by Standard Industry Code 5045 can partner with large
manufacturers under a waiver PTO obtained from the Small Business Administration.
The change from the usual small-business SIC 3571 to SIC 5045 might put some leading
government contractors out of the ballgame, said Brian Nightingale, executive
vice president of IntelliSys Technology Corp. of Fairfax, Va., which has more than 100
employees.
Nightingale said a small business certified under SIC 3571 can have up to 1,000
employees.
DART will have one base year and four one-year options. PTO plans to buy at least 680
desktop PCs; DARTs ceiling is 24,000. It was unclear whether the buy will be open to
all Commerce agencies, like its PTO Desktop predecessor, now in its third year.
DART bidders minimum system must have a 450-MHz Pentium II processor, a 440BX
chip set, 128M of synchronous dynamic RAM, a network interface card and an Ultra Wide
SCSI-3 interface.
The DART request for proposals will follow the Acquisition Concept of Operations model,
the Commerce Departments streamlined buying policy.
The original PTO Desktop contractor, Hughes Data Systems of Irvine, Calif., later
became part of Raytheon Systems Co. On Jan. 1, the contract took on new management by
Dovala, Urbancsik & Larson LLC of Anaheim, Calif., which employs some former Hughes
Data Systems program managers, company president Rick Dovala said.
Each of the Micron Electronics Inc. 450-MHz ClientPro Pentium II PCs with 128M of RAM
supplied through PTO Desktop receives a hard drive loaded with PTOs custom software
images by CompUSA Inc. of Dallas, said Matt Taylor, a civilian sales manager at Micron in
Nampa, Idaho.
Scott Larson, a Dovala, Urbancsik & Larson vice president, said the agency has
ordered more than 1,300 of the Micron PCs in the last four months.
The agency exercises revision control over the PTO Desktop ClientPros down to the
component level. If Micron adds a new controller card or network interface card, for
example, PTO technicians must first test and approve the addition, Taylor said.