Contractors Almanac

All Opinions expressed are my own. Once upon a time, back when the Federal Acquisition Regulation still felt mildly comprehensible, we had a relatively tidy definition of cloud computing. NIST Special Publication 800-145 provided us with a framework:  Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).  It wasn’t perfect, but at least it gave contracting officers, vendors, and program managers a shared language. Then Congress got creative. Thanks to Section 809 of the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Department of Defense now has a new procurement experiment: the  Anything-as-a-Service (AaaS) Pilot Program . The name alone is a red flag. Anything? Really? And yes, they mean it. In early May 2025, the Office of the Director for Defense Pricing, Contracting, and Acquisition Policy (DPCAP) released guidance expanding the definition of AaaS far beyond its cloud roots. Under this new model, a wide arr...

All Opinions Expressed are my own. Let’s cut to the chase: in today’s federal contracting environment, if you’re not on a major GWAC or IDIQ, you’re standing on the beach with a surfboard while everyone else is halfway to Maui. Once upon a time, you could build a healthy book of business through standalone contracts, open market buys, and maybe a few GSA Schedules sprinkled on top. But those days are fading like the memory of FedTeDS. Agencies are streamlining. Category Management is gospel. And  Best-in-Class contracts —you know, the ones blessed by OMB—are becoming  less optional and more existential . So how do you get in on the action? Below is a (semi-sarcastic but still strategic) guide to positioning your business to win long-term GWACs and IDIQs—because in this market, it’s either vehicle up or vanish into the 8(a) backlog. 1.  Start Before You Think You Should If you’re waiting for the Draft RFP to “start capture,” that’s adorable. The real players started  ...