All remaining FirstSource protests dismissed

All remaining companies protesting the FirstSource III contract have seen their complaints dismissed by the Government Accountability Office.

That clears all the remaining hurdles keeping the Homeland Security Department from making awards on the $10 billion IT product contract vehicle.

FirstSource is DHS' main program to buy hardware, software and related services. The program is set-aside for small businesses.

DHS has used an advisory down select process for this third iteration of FirstSource.

The department told companies who didn’t score high enough in phase one of the evaluation they are unlikely to win a spot on the contract. DHS basically told the companies to not waste resources.

Several companies then filed protests objecting to the advisory down select. Some of those protests have been withdrawn since the first filing in August, but four remained active until GAO dismissed them on Friday.

GovPlace, Better Direct, iT1 Source and CounterTrade were the last four protestors.

But the dismissals could be exactly what the companies were looking for. As was explained to me, the protestors likely wanted to raise objections now and not risk waiting to do so until after DHS made the awards.

With these protests, the companies put a stake in the ground now. They succeeded in taking away one potential future argument from DHS: that the protests were untimely because the companies waited.

By ruling the protests as premature, GAO has told the companies they can protest after awards are made. Of course, winning an award takes away the protest.

Awards are expected by the end of the year with 20 winners anticipated.