The General Services Administration’s Federal Technology Service late last week awarded Symplicity Corp. of Arlington, Va., the contract to run FedBizOpps.gov, the government’s procurement portal.

A GSA spokeswoman confirmed the $17.4 million best-value award to Symplicity. The new contract will be for three years, with five one-year options, and would ask the vendor to develop and manage FedBizOpps.gov.

The spokeswoman said GSA’s Integrated Acquisition Environment project team will manage the transition to Symplicity’s system, which should happen before Dec. 31.

The small-business set-aside contract was delayed by more than 10 months.

Information Sciences Corp. of Silver Spring, Md., and Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego hold the current contract, which expired in September 2004 but was extended through most of fiscal 2005.

FTS chose Symplicity from four bidders, according to sources. The same sources said a protest from one or more of the losing bidders is likely.

ISC had protested the solicitation last November, but the Government Accountability Office dismissed the protest after GSA resolved ISC’s issue, auditors said.

The new system must support at least 1 million users, be able to archive at least 1 million documents per year; store and process 50,000 new documents per month and conduct online searches within 10 seconds, according to the request for proposals.

Jason Miller is an assistant managing editor of Washington Technology’s sister publication, Government Computer News.