P06- FAR 13.501 BN (Quark) (Redacted).pdf

United States Department of Agriculture Brand Name Justification

FAR 13.501(a)– Simplified Acquisitions Control No.

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Production and Conservation Business Center (FPAC-BC), Acquisition Division in support of the FPAC-BC Information Solutions Division (ISD).

2. Description of supply or service required to meet the agency’s needs.

A firm fixed price purchase order to be awarded on a brand name basis of Quark Software for Quark Publishing Platform Production System with 1000 Named Users, QXP Server & Subrenderers, Quark Author Web Edition. Managed Service 30 days.

The period of performance will be for one 12-month base period and one 12-month option period.

Base Year: 09/30/202 – 09/29/202 Option Year: 09/30/202 – 09/29/202

3. The rationale or circumstances for limiting competition.

The Quark publishing platform manages and automates the creation, processing, and publishing of content. The Quark authoring application is a web-based content creation tool, which together with the Quark publishing platform, allows for streamlining and automation of content generation and review/feedback loop involved in creating, previewing, publishing, and reusing content.

NRCS currently has an application that has been built as a customization to Quark Publishing Platform. This customization includes not only configuration changes within the QPP but also custom software codes to extend the QPP application. Since these customizations has been specifically written to work with Quark Publishing Platform and QuarkXPress, the functionality for the current NRCS application can only be maintained by using the named Quark software.

Without Quark, the customized NRCS application would be unavailable to all users. This would create a work stoppage that would severely impact the ability of users to work on Conservation Practice Standards (CPS). This would impact National Discipline leads and National Team Leads as they would not be able to create new National Standards for Conservation Practice Standards. They would not be able to create new revision years for existing national CPS. They also would not be able to adopt and edit a CPS for their state.

In addition, there would be a loss of all existing functionality of the NRCS Application including enforced document standardization, standardized workflow steps including review processes, standardized workflow steps for state adoption of national standards and publishing functionality to have published documents be displayed in t

Other solutions have been assessed and NRCS is currently in the process of modernization/software development for the NRCS Application, which will eliminate the need for the Quark software which was slated to be in place no later than end of fiscal year 2024. This critical milestone transition has lapsed in estimations, with an unknown migration date to be determined. Therefore, to ensure applications are functional and meet the needs of the customers, it is vital that Quark software is kept in place in the interim. This is the most advantageous solution for the government as any other solution would not be cost-effective in the amount of time remaining.

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