D -- COTS Software customization

Under the authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation, Part 6, Subparts 6.301 and 6.302, the U.S. Census Bureau intends to contract with Amgraf, Inc., 1501 Oak Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64108-1424, on a sole source basis to provide software development services. The software development effort is a customization of Amgraf Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software. The U. S. Census Bureau, Systems Support Division uses the Corporate Metadata Repository (CMR) to facilitate the management, administration, sharing and reuse of metadata for the Decennial 2003 pilot program. The metadata involved includes all of the information pertaining to various questionnaires. For the past decade the questionnaires have been created by ACSD using Amgraf's software and this software is currently in use to create the questionnaires. Also, the Decennial 2003 has used the Amgraf software for the 2003 questionnaire development.The Amgraf software is used not only to store the content of the questionnaires, but also to store layout information. In order for the CMR to interface with the Amgraf software, enhancements must be made to the Amgraf COTS software to enable communication with other XML compatible systems. In order to perform this service the provider would need access to Amgraph COTS code. After completion of the work the software modifications will be incorporated into the Amgraf COTS product. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the government. In doing so, interested sources must submit technical capabilities, pricing, and other information that demonstrates their ability to meet the Census Bureau's needs. Detailed capabilities must be submitted to the U.S. Census Bureau, Acquisition Division, 4700 Silver Hill Road, Room #G-314 (Mail Stop 1700), ATTN: William H. Russell, Suitland, Maryland 20746. This synopsis is not to be considered a request for quotations or proposals. No solicitation document is available and telephone requests will not be honored. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice, but offers will be used to determine if a comparable source is available and more advantageous to the government. If no affirmative written response is received within 15 days from the publication of this synopsis, a contract may be issued to Amgraf Inc. without further notice.