VA PC Buys Explained

Last week I wondered about what appeared to be two dueling procurement vehicles the Veterans Affairs Department has on the street to meet its PC requirements, and today I have the answers.

Rom Mascetti, VA deputy assistant secretary for information technology resource management, told me that the RFP the VA put out last November for 600,000 PCs is a lease deal to replace PCs acquired from Dell under a contract which expired last August.

Last month (March 11), the VA put out a request for information that mentions plans for a commodity buy of a whole bunch of gizmos, including desktop and laptop PCs, routers and storage stuff.

Mascetti said that once the still-to-be-awarded contract for 600,000 PCs expires, then the commodity contract will be used as a follow on -- if VA goes ahead with that procurement.

All of this assumes we have a government that is not shut down.