ccmMercury Annual Maintenance Agreement Renewal

NOTICE OF INTENT TO PROCURE ITEM PECULIAR TO ONE MANUFACTURER (See FAR 11.105(a)(3)). The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of the Secretary (OS) intends to renew its annual maintenance support for 167 licenses for ccmMercury Software from WorkDynamics Technologies Limited, (50 Hines Road, Suite #220, Kanata, Ontario K2K 2M5, Canada). Award will be on a sole source basis in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 13.106-1(b), only one source reasonably available. WorkDynamics is the manufacturer of the software and the sole provider of annual maintenance. The period of performance is a 12-month base period and four 12-month option periods. ED currently uses the ccmMercury software for its correspondence tracking system. The software is used throughout ED to track the status of incoming mail to the Secretary of Education and other Department officials. Award of this contract to any source other than one capable of maintaining the ccmMercury Software licenses would cause ED to realize a substantial duplication of costs equivalent to purchasing, configuring and installing a new electronic document tracking system for Executive Correspondence that is 32-bit and allows access for 167 users. In addition, ED would incur costs of any modifications to ED's internal system to allow use of the new software, the required annual maintenance agreement, and any costs for employee training on use of the Software that would not be recovered through competition. After thorough market research that included surveying product catalogs, GSA schedule offerings, and vendor websites, the Contracting Officer concluded that, while numerous entities may be able to develop a solution, only the WorkDynamics solution described above is currently available in the commercial marketplace and is capable of immediately meeting the Department's needs without further development. Accordingly, the Department intends to solicit only WorkDynamics and to renew its annual maintenance agreement with the firm. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to meet the requirement in writing to the identified point of contact not later than September 18, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. EST. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely to determine whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Department not to compete this proposed action on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Department. This notice of intent is NOT a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for competitive quotes. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice.