The Air Force is set to award half of it’s $24 billion dollars for the Network-Centric-Solutions-2 (NETCENTS-2) to small business contracts. After several delays David Van Buren, the Air Force services acquisition executive, said on Jan 20, “We fully intend to award these contracts in the second and third quarters of 2012”.
The NETCENTS-2 is a five year $9billion procurement program for a range of network-centric supplies and services, including hardware and software for networking and various engineering, software development, system integration, security and telephone services. The NETCENTS-2 is based on the original Network Centric Solutions program.
$11 billion dollars, roughly half of the NETCENTS-2’s contracts, are set to be awarded to small businesses. Those contracts which are not set aside for small businesses, are required to have a minimum of 23 percent small business subcontracting. There will also be two small business companion contracts, for networking operations and application services available
The NETCENT-2 is going to be a promising contract to pursue in the coming quarters of this year for small businesses.Van Buren also said “The use of small business is a key part of the partnership between government and industry, and also critical to the innovation and broader Air Force transformation in 2012”.
