[Protest of Army Rejection of Bid for Microcomputers]

A firm protested the Army's rejection of its bid as nonresponsive and contract award to the second low bidder, contending that its bid met the minimum solicitation requirements. GAO noted that the Army rejected the protester's bid because its computer did not offer a specific quantity of random access memory and the option for the operating system did not meet the mandatory requirements. GAO held that: (1) the protester's interpretation of the solicitation's memory requirement was reasonable; (2) only one paragraph in the solicitation stated a specific requirement for random access memory; (3) if the Army intended to require more memory in the microcomputers, it did not accurately express the requirement in the solicitation; (4) the protester's version of the operating system was responsive to the solicitation's mandatory requirements; (5) there was no evidence that the contracting officer ever considered the equivalency of the system option; and (6) the Army improperly rejected the protester's offer, since the solicitation failed to list any salient characteristics with which an equal system had to comply. Accordingly, the protest was sustained.