Intent to Sole Source to Clearwell Systems, Inc.

On behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Investigations (OI), the Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center plans to award a sole source simplified acquisition to Clearwell Systems, Inc. located at 2901 Tasman Drive Suite 100 Santa Clara, California 95054-1137. The purpose of this requirement is to purchase the following products: (1) Search Only License Upgrade for 3 Email Intelligence Platforms; (2) Support and Maintenance Upgrade from 450 Gigabytes to 1 Terabyte through 3/30/09; and (3) Support on the Hardware and Software purchased in the previous order with Clearwell to end co-terminus on 3/30/09. In August of 2007, HHS OIG purchased an additional Clearwell Server and Hardware Maintenance to support additional investigative data. In order to support additional Clearwell cases, OIG needs to upgrade their software license from 450 GB to 1 TB. Their cases are currently backlogged, pending this upgrade. By purchasing the software license upgrade, they will be able to process cases faster and lessen the wait time on existing cases. The OIG, Office of Investigations (OI) conducts investigations of fraud and misconduct to safeguard the Department's programs and protect its beneficiaries. OI concentrates its resources on criminal investigations, but its activities are also aimed at deterring fraud and abuse by identifying systemic weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be mitigated through corrective management actions, regulation, or legislation; and by pursuing criminal convictions and recovering damages and penalties through civil and administrative proceedings. Due to the ever increasing amount of electronic data, in particular, e-mail, which is obtained pursuant to our criminal, civil, and administrative investigations, the OI, Seized Computer Evidence Recovery Staff (SCERS) is finding it more and more difficult to sift through the data and provide useful results to case agents in a timely manner. Current e-mail analysis methodologies require time consuming searches of individual e-mail accounts which must be manually linked from one e-mail account to the next. In addition, the number of search warrants conducted by OI results in SCERS personnel being in travel status for a large percentage of their time. This reduces the amount of time they have to spend conducting analysis of the evidence obtained. To address this shortfall, OI implemented a software solution that is capable of analyzing multiple e-mail accounts, can associate/link e-mails contained in multiple accounts based on both content and metadata, is server based, has an easy to use web interface, and can log actions so as to easily identify and replicate search methods used. In early 2006, SCERS purchased 2 copies of Clearwell Systems Inc.'s standalone e-mail analysis software. The software was purchased to complete e-mail analysis for an investigation requiring the case agent to sort through large amounts of e-mail data. The case was overwhelmingly successful using the stand-alone version of the software. Since the initial procurement, the stand-alone units have been utilized to aide in additional investigations. However, since each license is installed on a stand-alone laptop, OI is unable to use each license for any more than one case at a time and one agent at a time. By taking this technology from a standalone version to a server based solution, it allowed OI to take full advantage of this technology by allowing up to 3 investigations per license and allowed multiple agents to conduct search/analysis on an investigation from anywhere within our organization without requiring units to be shipped from one person to the next. In addition to the 2 upgrades in August 2007, OI purchased a third license to establish an initial operating capability of a minimum of 9 investigations at a time. The OIG completed a thorough assessment of multiple network based e-mail analysis vendors to fulfill our mission need. Products from Clearwell Systems Inc., Kazeon, and Attenex were reviewed. During the assessment one vendor stood above the rest by providing a single web based interface for discovering, analysis, and case management. Clearwell was the only product to provide discussion threads to link together all related messages into chronological threads which capture the entire email discussion. This enables agents to quickly identify information for their case instead of sifting through a lot of false positives. Clearwell - Key Capabilities: - Discussion Threads Visualization - Discover WHO KNEW WHAT AND WHEN - De-duplication - Analyze duplicate emails & documents only once - - Google-like Relevance Ranking - Review the most relevant emails/files first - Communication Flow tracking - Automatically track Group-to-Group, Internal-to-External or External-to-Internal, Domain'Domain communications - Nested Search - Easily construct complex searches and searches within a search - Data Classification/annotation - User defined Tagging & Classification of data - Export pertinent emails/documents to PST and/or PDF formats - Collaborate across investigation teams and prosecutors Since the Clearwell product has already been implemented as a stand-alone solution, many Seized Computer Evidence Recovery Staff and case agents are already utilizing the software. This will reduce training requirements. Also, the cost to upgrade the three existing licenses is significantly less than buying a new license, reducing the overall cost to reach our initial operating capability. Finally, Clearwell has offered a 40% discount on all items, including the upgrades6+ and annual support. Based on our assessment, the OIG selects Clearwell Systems as its preferred vendor for price, functionality, and overall best value to the government. Interested concerns capable of providing compatible products to the ones identified in the first paragraph may submit a capability statement outlining their products and the content of those products. No solicitation is available. Information received will be evaluated for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Following evaluation of capability statements, a determination by the Government not to compete this requirement is solely within the discretion of the Government. If no responses are received within 10 calendar days from the date of this synopsis, the Contracting Officer shall proceed with award to Clearwell Systems, Inc.