B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3, Apptis, Inc., May 23, 2007

B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3, Apptis, Inc., May 23, 2007 TITLE: B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3, Apptis, Inc., May 23, 2007 BNUMBER: B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3 DATE: May 23, 2007 ************************************************************ B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3, Apptis, Inc., May 23, 2007 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Apptis, Inc. File: B-299457; B-299457.2; B-299457.3 Date: May 23, 2007 Richard J. Conway, Esq., Robert J. Moss, Esq., Charlotte Rothenberg Rosen, Esq., and Joseph R. Berger, Esq., Dickstein Shapiro LLP, for the protester. David R. Hazelton, Esq., Kyle R. Jefcoat, Esq., Ali I. Ahmad, Esq., Roger S. Goldman, Esq., and Andrew B. Stein, Esq., Latham & Watkins LLP, for ViON Corporation, an intervenor. Stephanie A. Kreis, Esq., Defense Information Systems Agency, for the agency. Louis A. Chiarella, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Post-closing time protest that evaluator who is not a government employee has an impermissible conflict of interest is untimely where the solicitation informed offerors of the agency's intent to use the evaluator and the protester was aware of the factual basis of the evaluator's alleged conflict of interest prior to closing time. 2. Agency's evaluation of offerors' "proof of concept" demonstrations cannot be determined to be reasonable where the record lacks adequate documentation supporting the evaluators' findings. 3. Agency's consideration of an offeror's record of past performance as part of assessing technical approach risk was improper where past performance was not relevant and reasonably related to technical approach risk as defined in the solicitation. 4. Agency's discussions with protester were not meaningful where the agency found significant weaknesses in the protester's proposal but failed to identify them during discussions and give the firm the opportunity to comment on adverse past performance information to which it previously had not had an opportunity to respond. 5. Protest challenging agency's price and past performance evaluation is denied where the record establishes that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the stated evaluation criteria DECISION Apptis, Inc. protests the award of a contract to ViON Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. HC1013-06-R-2005, issued by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Department of Defense (DOD), for enterprise storage services (ESS). Apptis argues that the agency's proposal evaluation and subsequent source selection decision were improper. Apptis also contends that a contractor that DISA employed to help evaluate offerors' proposals had an impermissible organizational conflict of interest. We sustain the protest in part and deny it in part. BACKGROUND DISA, through its Computing Services (CS) group, is a provider of information technology solutions for DOD customers that require data storage capacity services for a variety of applications and processing environments. The ESS initiative seeks to obtain state-of-the-art storage solutions to meet new and emerging customer requirements and provide storage solutions to replace existing DISA storage capacity that has exceeded its technical or economic life as determined by the agency. DISA's goal for the ESS procurement here is to obtain a dynamically scalable storage capability utilizing an on-demand service approach that will readily adjust to changes in processing and throughput requirements, both increases and decreases, and is priced on a utility ("as used") basis. In general terms, the statement of work required the contractor to acquire, install, de-install, transport, configure, and maintain all hardware, and provide software and software updates, for nine specified computer operating environments at any of the current or future DISA CS data centers located in the United States and Germany. Statement of Work (SOW) sect.C.1-4; Contracting Officer's Statement at 2. The RFP, issued on December 28, 2005, contemplated the award of a fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for a base period of 5 years with three 1-year options. The solicitation identified four evaluation factors: technical solution; price/cost (hereinafter, price); service offerings; and past performance.[1] The solicitation notified offerors that proposal and past performance risk would also be evaluated.