The US Air Force has issued a partial draft request for procurement for up to 300,000 desktop computers, said to be one of the largest single bids for personal computers. Electronic News says that the Air Force confirmed previously that Unisys Corp, the incumbent for the current Desktop-3 personal computer contract, had delivery difficulties and was not meeting the monthly target of 6,000 Model 800 Intel-based systems a month. Unisys claims that it is now meeting its obligations and says that the Air Force is going out for new bids simply because the present procurement contract underestimated demand for personal computers. The Air Force is attempting to streamline Desktop-4 so that the bid cycle may be compressed and the contract awarded by the end of this year. It is seeking commercial off-the-shelf systems already available rather than those still under development, and bidders will be required to deliver an operating computer along with their responses. There will not be any Best-and-Final offers, and the award is to made on the basis of initial submissions. The bid will call for different levels of facilities, starting with 20Mb disk for office automation. There will be a mid-range system with 40Mb disk and electronic mail, and an advanced system with 200Mb is needed for spreadsheets, graphics and statistical applications. The last must be Posix-compliant with Unix, Ada, SQL and X Window. Separately, the US Treasury department is expected to make a decision by the end of the month over the hardware for its massive Treasury Multi-user Acquisition Contract for the Internal Revenue Service, which is estimated to be worth up to $1,200m. The three consortia in contention for it are Arix Corp with IBM Corp; AT&T Co with Pyramid Technology Corp; and Hewlett-Packard Co with Lockheed Corp.
