Interior to Rebid Cloud Contract After Yearlong Legal Squabble

The Interior Department plans to reopen bidding on a contract to move its 88,000 email users to a single cloud-based system, according to a presolicitation notice posted Monday, four months after the department agreed to toss a 2010 award for that transition to Microsoft Corp.

The department withdrew the original award in exchange for a federal judge's agreement to also dismiss a yearlong legal challenge by Google, which said Interior unfairly structured the contract in such a way that essentially guaranteed Microsoft would win.

Interior's move to an agencywide cloud-based email system will be among the largest by a federal agency. The department expects its request for proposals to come out on or around Feb. 7 and describes it as "a competitive firm fixed-price contract with a base period of one year and six option years."...