Application Support Services

The US Department of Commerce/ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302-1. The proposed source is APLICOR, INC of Boca Raton, FL. The intended contract with Aplicor is for Application Support Services for the International Trade Administrations (ITA) Client Tracking System (CTS). The purpose of this system is to provide ITA with a centralized database and supporting application tools for managing all interactions (360 degree focus) with its customers. This Commercial-Of- the-Shelf (COTS) software package, hosted by Aplicor, contains several modules which have gone through significant customization in an effort to meet ITA's unique and dynamic business requirements. The CTS product is developed, licensed and owned by Aplicor. No other vendor currently licenses or provides Application Services support for the product as Aplicor holds full proprietary rights to the Aplicor software and all its modules. Some examples of customizations completed to-date to meet ITA's business needs which are managed and maintained by Aplicor include: - Lotus Notes Synchronization: Provides the ability to synchronize ITA's existing Lotus Notes emails to specific activity associated with an organization, contact or case record within the CTS database. - Commercial Diplomacy Success and Export Successes: Provides the ability for end-users to log, track and report on actions and interactions taken on behalf of Commercial Service and Market Access and Compliance clients. - Application Tuning and Performance Relative to ITA's Environment: Aplicor's certified and accredited (C&A) installation of ITA's infrastructure components at a external hosting facility is a key to CTS's reliable and secured performance which supports an international user-base of 2,500+ personnel. - Application interfaces between CTS and internal ITA Legacy Applications (e.g. Emenu): Integration of the CTS application with various ITA legacy applications allows critical ITA data to be shared and validated in a timely manner. - Customized Reporting: This functionality allows end-users to custom build and configure both batch reports and on-line queries. - Custom Business Rules/Workflow: Custom business rules with supporting electronic workflows (export successes and concurrence process for case management) have been created within the CTS application to meet ITA's unique and dynamic business requirements. - Core Product Modules: These modules which are included in the base product and are exclusive to Aplicor include: Content Designer, Document Library, Marketing Management and Project Management Office. This notice is being published for information purposes only and is not a request for competitive quotations; however, any quotations received within 15 days of the issuance of this notice will be considered by the government. A determination by the government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.