Last week, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) released a Request for Information for Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) Collaboration Services. According to the RFI, DISA is seeking industry sources that can "provide the administration, publication, management, life-cycle sustainment, and operation of Collaboration service offerings on the SIPRNet and NIPRNet and other networks." Additional requirements include the implementation of hardware and software as required. The collaboration tools to be developed include texting, messaging, file sharing, web conferencing, and others. All of these tools will be required to interface with Defense Knowledge Online (DKO), the expansion of which is being undertaken by the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS) in consultation with DISA.

The potential acquisition approach outlined by DISA in the RFI is slightly different from that which DISA has previously employed to secure NCES Collaboration Services. This go around, DISA appears to be unifying NCES Collaboration Services under one contract. In 2006 and 2007, DISA took a two-contractor approach, awarding one contract to IBM Corporation in July 2006 (INPUT Opportunity Report # 49820) and a Collaboration Services "Second Provider" Task Order contract to Carahsoft Technology Corporation in June 2007 (INPUT Opportunity Report #37620). Both the IBM and Carahsoft contracts are scheduled to expire in 2010.

DITCO (DISA's contracting activity) has told INPUT that the requirements in the October 1, 2008 RFI differ from the requirements listed in the Collaboration Services RFQs from 2006-2007. However, a cursory comparison of the requirements in both sets of documents reveals a lot of similarities between the capabilities DISA previously desired and the capabilities they are requesting from the next Collaboration Services provider. One difference appears to be DISA's call for a "Virtual Space" that provides "a shared file space capability where a host, session moderator, and/or session participant can publish, manage, and retrieve information of all file types in support of persistent and non-persistent web conferencing sessions." These capabilities were implied in the 2006-2007 RFQs, but are called out specifically in the new RFI. Another apparent difference is the need for the next generation of Collaboration Services to interface with Defense Knowledge Online (DKO) via the SIPRNet and NIPRNet. DISA has designated DKO as the interface through which future NCES capabilities are to be delivered to the Warfighter so the need for Collaboration Services interoperability makes sense.

DISA's plans for this acquisition are still developing so all procurement milestones should be considered tentative. This said, the agency has scheduled an Industry Day for Wednesday, November 12, 2008. Also, according to a tentative schedule released in August 2008 by PEO GIG Enterprise Services Director Rebecca Harris, DISA anticipates releasing the Solicitation for the Collaboration Services follow-on contract sometime during the 1st Quarter of FY 2009. DISA also anticipated releasing the RFI for Collaboration Services in the 4th Quarter of FY 2008, but missed that date. If a similar delay holds true for release of the Solicitation, INPUT anticipates the RFP will not hit the street until the mid to late 2nd Quarter of FY 2009.