From: The Washington Post
By Kathleen Miller
Dell and Hewlett-Packard will need to align themselves with small businesses to tap a $5 billion federal contract to supply items such as laptops, servers, routers and storage systems.
The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to pick as many as three companies by the end of March to share the five-year agreement, which has drawn interest from the top computer makers and IBM. Only firms with a maximum of 150 employees will be chosen as prime contractors, forcing large companies to woo smaller partners for work.
The boost to small firms is long overdue, said Cris Young, president of the American Small Business Chamber of Commerce, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
“It’s about time for us to get our fair share of the pie,” Young said in a phone interview. “The dollar amount of the VA contract is huge. For a small business to get something like this is amazing.”
The Obama administration has prodded agencies to steer more contracts to small businesses after the government missed its targets in that area. The VA has the added responsibility of helping veteran-owned companies.
One of the three small businesses on the technology contract will be owned by a disabled veteran if there’s an acceptable offer, agency spokeswoman Jo Schuda said in an e-mail.
Budget immunity
The Homeland Security Department and the General Services Administration have put small firms in the driver’s seats of similar contracts, but the VA initiative is particularly interesting because the agency’s funding is set to grow in an austere budget environment. It is also immune to the looming threat of automatic U.S. spending cuts.
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