RESTON, Va., May 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. government awarded over $11 billion in information technology contracts during the second quarter of fiscal 2006, according to market analysts INPUT.
In a report issued Wednesday the firm, which tracks government contracts, said that the dollar value of those contracts was about level with the same period last year, and that nearly half was awarded by the Department of Energy and the U.S. Air Force, which between them doled out nearly $5 billion -- half of that in the Eneregy Department's hiring of National Security Technologies, LLC to run its Nevada test site and related facilities.
The largest Air Force contract is worth $2 billion over 10 years to Lockheed Martin for a satellite mission operations system.
Compared with the same period last year, there was a 17 percent increase in set-aside competitions -- contracts reserved for certain categories of vendors, like small or veteran-owned businesses -- to nearly $1 billion.
More than half the awards during the quarter were for support services, like maintenance, said INPUT's Marcus Fedeli in a statement. "Older hardware and software has to be maintained which is extremely costly, but agencies are continuing to look at new options in replacing these legacy systems."
