Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Amazon a top contender for GSA’s e-commerce pilot

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The General Services Administration released a draft request for proposal July 2 for its Commercial Platform Initiative, or CPI, a governmentwide e-commerce program that could offer companies like Amazon.com Inc. the chance to run online marketplaces through which agencies spend as much as $6 billion a year.

Under the CPI, vendors will compete to establish e-commerce platforms that federal contracting officers can use to buy everyday items with their government purchase cards.  GSA will select multiple vendors to participate in a 12-month pilot program that would inform the larger governmentwide effort, according to the solicitation.  After the initial 12 months, the government has the choice to extend the contract for four option years.

“An exciting opportunity lies ahead to create not only a modernized buying experience but also reduce the burden for agency partners and suppliers alike,” said GSA deputy assistant commissioner Laura Stanton.  “We are looking to leverage business-to-business terms whenever practicable, to allow for streamlined buying while obtaining a more transparent and centralized view of this type of government-wide spend.”

Continue reading at:  Bloomberg Government

Amazon vies for federal business, denies crowding competitors

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Amazon, the online sales giant with a growing Washington presence, has struck fear in its competitors that it aims to dominate the federal government’s purchasing process.

Now, a top official with Amazon.com Inc.’s business division is fighting back against claims that the company is intent on monopolizing federal online purchases, selling the government everything from pens and paper to computers, televisions, and office furniture.

Amazon Business is content to be viewed as “another option the buyers had in the government space,” Anne Rung, director of government for Amazon Business told Bloomberg Government in a phone interview interview from the company’s Seattle headquarters.

Keep reading this article at: https://about.bgov.com/blog/amazon-vies-federal-business-denies-crowding-competitors/

Pentagon’s next cloud contract could be worth billions

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According to an internal strategy document obtained by Nextgov, the Pentagon aims to award a 10-year cloud computing contract—potentially worth billions—to a single company by the fourth quarter of 2018.

The contract would call on one commercial cloud service provider to host unclassified, secret and top secret Defense Department data, and the Pentagon’s approach mirrors the CIA’s enterprisewide approach to cloud four years ago, which resulted in a 10-year, $600 million contract with Amazon Web Services. AWS has since invested heavily to provide capabilities across all data classification levels.

The similarities between the Defense’s early cloud strategy and the CIA’s has rival tech companies worried that the department’s acquisition may lean toward AWS. In any case, such a massive contract could disrupt the $100 billion federal IT market and leave the winner in a position to dominate it for years to come.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2017/12/pentagons-next-cloud-contract-could-be-worth-billions/144506/

Amazon Web Services joins Georgia Tech’s ‘internet of things’ research center

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The Centergy building, located at 75 Fifth St., NW, in Atlanta is home to CDAIT.
The Centergy building, located at 75 Fifth St., NW, in Atlanta is home to CDAIT.

Georgia Tech’s Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT) has added Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) to its growing list of members and launched four new working groups.

AWS is the most recent company to sign on to the research center, which now includes the following members from around the world:

  • AirWatch by VMware (U.S.)
  • Amazon Web Services (U.S.)
  • AT&T (U.S.)
  • Brambles (Australia)
  • Cisco (U.S.)
  • Corning (U.S.)
  • Flex (formerly Flextronics) (Singapore)
  • IBM (U.S.)
  • Infor (U.S.)
  • Merial [Sanofi] (France)
  • Samsung (South Korea)
  • Stanley Black and Decker (U.S.)
  • USAA (U.S.)
  • Wipro (India)

“We are pleased to welcome AWS to the board of CDAIT,” said Jeff Evans, chairman of CDAIT’s Executive Advisory Board (EAB). “AWS is the latest company to place a high value on Georgia Tech’s breadth of expertise and depth of experience in technological research in the fields that impact the Internet of Things.”

Amazon Web Services will be represented on the CDAIT EAB by Mark Ryland, chief solutions architect, World Wide Public Sector Team, AWS.

“We are delighted to join Georgia Tech’s Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies to further explore the huge potential of IoT technologies,” said Ryland. “This is a focus area for us, as our customers are eager to unlock that potential. The AWS Cloud plays a key role in easily and securely connecting devices, managing their state and providing analytics on the potentially massive amounts of data they produce, with automatic scaling to meet any customer’s needs.”

CDAIT has also launched four new working groups tackling education, chaired by Margaret Loper of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI); startup ecosystem, chaired by Tech Square Ventures’ Blake Patton; thought leadership, chaired by Cisco’s Scott Puopolo; and research, chaired by Kenji Takeuchi of Flex.

“These new groups are busy pulling together deliverables that will move the needle in the Internet of Things space worldwide,” said Alain Louchez, managing director of CDAIT. “Our vision of the center has always been focused on effective collaboration between university and industry, and we are extremely pleased with our progress in this regard.”

The Executive Advisory Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 7, 2016, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

About CDAIT

CDAIT (pronounced “sedate”) is a global, non-profit, partner-funded center located in Atlanta that fosters interdisciplinary research and education while driving general awareness about the Internet of Things (IoT). It aims at efficiently identifying, understanding and solving for its sponsors challenges and problems that may arise along the whole IoT value chain. CDAIT bridges sponsors with Georgia Tech faculty and researchers as well as industry members with similar interests. To learn more about CDAIT, visit www.cdait.gatech.edu.

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