Input: $180 billion in federal IT contracts in 2010

The budget will be increasing significantly next year for information technology spending at civilian agencies, according to market research firm Input. The 20 largest federal IT projects in 2010 are 50 percent higher than the previous year, increasing to an estimated $180 billion from $120 billion.

That sounds like a lot of money, but Input says much of the money will be spent renewing or replacing existing contracts, not starting new ones.

"There are really no large systems integration contracts to build something new, most of the contracts are recompetes of existing contracts that are really task order-based vehicles," Kevin Plexico, senior vice president of research and analysis at Input told NextGov.com.

Much of the increased spending, he says, is coming from $113 billion in contracts at the largest civil agencies choosing to compete their own task-order vehicles instead of using the General Services Administration's contract offerings.

There's more spending to come that is not part of this analysis, Plexico said. Cloud computing opportunities are absent from the Input list, despite the administration's willingness to embrace of this new technology.

"There's a lot of attention paid to emerging technologies at the policy and strategic level, but when you talk about brass tacks and where dollars are spent, relatively few dollars are spent on those technologies," he said. "Most are on routine services contracts that keep the government's wheels moving."

For more on 2010 IT contract spending:
- check out this NextGov.com article

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