Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Army's procurement of Project 80X, an automated information management system, to: (1) determine whether the solicitation's technical specifications unduly restricted competition; and (2) evaluate the Army's responsiveness to questions raised concerning the specifications.
GAO found that: (1) four of the solicitation specifications did not restrict competition, since offerers could propose any products that they believed were functionally equivalent to the specified component; (2) although the specification concerning the capability of a component to interface with a non-Project 80X system was more restrictive, it was justified; and (3) the systems architecture specification did not include a recently withdrawn Army standard requiring vendor-specific system software. GAO also found that the Army: (1) was responsive to questions that potential offerers raised regarding the solicitation's restrictiveness; and (2) satisfactorily resolved all the issues a bid protester raised regarding restrictiveness.
