For the second time, DISA says only Leidos can finish DODNet, with 231,000 users due

The do-over lands where it started

The Defense Information Systems Agency re-posted its sole-source case on 28 September↗ for folding the 11 combatant commands into Leidos's $11.5 billion Defense Enclave Services contract, keeping the June original's approval number, JA26-059 ¹². General Dynamics IT had protested that first attempt on 10 July↗, flagging waived market research, no fresh pricing determination and no plan to lower barriers to future competition, sections the June document had marked "not applicable" ⁴⁵. DISA pulled the expansion back and went looking for evidence ¹².

The search was brisk. A sources-sought notice issued 27 July↗ gave industry about eight days to answer; the second, issued 27 August, gave 24 hours ⁶². Twenty-four companies replied anyway, with GDIT, Booz Allen, Accenture, Peraton and SAIC among them ¹.

Twenty-four answers, one verdict

The verdict survived the exercise. DISA again put it in the agency's own words: "Leidos is the only responsible source capable of meeting the [Defense Department chief information officer] migration deadlines" ². The barrier is authorship: rivals would need access to "the author of the migration script" to adapt DODNet's automation scripts, Active Directory schemas and identity, credential and access management structures ². The ceiling stays $11.5 billion, the added work's value is redacted, and DISA prices a competition at $15 million in duplicated engineering ¹².

The arithmetic DISA signed

A May memo from Pentagon CIO Kirsten Davies set the clock: every combatant command onto DODNet by 30 September 2028 ⁴². The added scope is 231,000 users at 200 sites across 11 commands ¹. Leidos's four-year record under Enclave is 40,000 users at 900 sites across 14 agencies ¹, against an original solicitation sized at no fewer than 370,000 users ⁴.

Spread the new users over the two fiscal years left and the required pace is roughly 115,000 a year, more than eleven times the average managed since 2022. DISA's answer is that automated scripts have already cut migration times from months to weeks ¹. The case for lock-in is that only the author of the migration scripts can finish the migration, and the author's four-year record is 40,000 users.

The same week, a ruled-out rival took Leidos's cyber work

Customs and Border Protection reached a different verdict on Leidos's cyber credentials. Accenture Federal Services' $121.4 million, five-year contract for the Cyber Security Operations Center↗ took effect on 1 October ³. Leidos held the work; it has noticed 84 layoffs in Ashburn for 23 November, after 93 in March ³. Accenture was among the 24 respondents DISA just ruled out ¹.

Skeptics hold that warfighting networks are not back-office consolidation, and that a one-day response window looked less like research than ritual ²⁶.

Visibility is the trade; the risks carry dates

The ledger behind the argument: second-quarter revenue of $4.56 billion, up 7.2 percent↗, backlog of $48.71 billion, up 5.4 percent, and full-year guidance near $18.3 billion ⁷⁸. If the expansion stands, it is revenue visibility at an unchanged ceiling, priced in secret. The risks carry dates: a migration pace never demonstrated at this scale, and a GDIT that protested Enclave's 2022 award, lost, and has not said whether it will go again ⁴¹.