rfq_167577_2021542_REDACTED_BNJ_Apple_Refresh_Ready.pdf

Brand Name Apple Mac Refresh VA-20-00084225

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm fixed price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Apple MacBook Pro laptops, iMac desktops and AppleCare to support the devices.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA, Information Technology Operation and Services, End User Operations-National, has a requirement to refresh brand name Apple devices. The Contractor shall provide 170 brand name Apple MacBook Pro Laptops, 220 iMac Desktops and four-year AppleCare support services for all products under the base requirement to continue the development and maintenance of Veteran applications for iOS devices. Additionally, the Contractor shall provide optional quantities of additional brand name Apple MacBook Pro Laptops (up to 85), iMac Desktops (up to 110), and AppleCare support services for all products procured, if exercised by VA. The period of performance for this actions is 12 months. The optionalline items may be exercised, up to the NTE quantities at any time during the period of performance. The total estimated price of the proposed action is $xxxxxxxx.xx, which is inclusive of all options.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based in extensive market research, as described in section 8 of this document, it was determined that limited competition is viable among resellers for the brand name Apple MacBook Pro laptops, iMac desktops and AppleCare support. VA has developed bio-medical applications which support the health care of Veterans. VA application developers require Apple XCode to maintain the existing applications as well as develop and test additional iOS applications. Xcode is Apple’s integrated development environment which provides tools to manage the entire development workflow, from creating the app to testing, optimizing, and submitting it to the Apple AppStore. Xcode is a sole Mac operating system (MacOS) application and it is not possible to install on a Windows system.

MacOS allows for development of applications for use on other platforms (i.e. Android).

Apple does not license its operating system to other computer manufacturers; therefore, MacOS can only run on Apple devices. Unlike Microsoft Windows, which can operate on many manufactured PCs, there is no other type of hardware that is compatible with the iOS operating system. Apple holds proprietary and exclusive rights to the Apple line of products including hardware, operating system software, application software and warranty and repair services.

There is a need to maintain existing iOS and Android applications which support Veterans as well as develop and test new applications. For example, COVID Coach was created during the coronavirus pandemic to provide mental health and self-care support to Veterans. Post-Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Coach provides opportunities for individuals suffering from PTSD to find support and tools that can help manage the stresses of daily life. Another application, RxREfill, allows Veterans to request refills of their refillable VA-issued prescriptions and track VA prescription deliveries. Additionally, there are several iOS applications which are used by VA medical professionals to support Veterans. For example, CrashCart provides medical simulation to train and develop proficiency to VA medical personnel on the medical crash cart. The Image Viewing Solution (IVS) application allows VA clinicians and other medical professionals to search for and view patients’ clinical images. VA Staff Launchpad application houses all VA applications for care teams. The application organizes more than a dozen applications into categories. Clinician and medical professionals can access the following from VA Launchpad- patient information from the Electronic Health Record (EHR) including vitals, medications, allergies, lab results, consults and more; schedule and conduct video sessions, send texts and send and receive secure email messages; and view patient generated data related to specific chronic conditions (e.g., kidney disease, coronary disease).

VA will not able to maintain existing iOS applications without the MacOS and supporting Apple developer tools. Without continued maintenance of existing iOS applications, these applications would become obsolete. Additionally, without ability to develop new iOS applications, VA would be forced to pursue procurement of alternative brand devices which could run Android applications and require Veterans and VA staff utilizing iOS devices to replace their devices as the full functionality and support will only be available on a supported device. The cost of replacing the VA iOS devices would be a minimum of $68M. These costs are based on previous acquisition history and would not be recovered through competition. More importantly, changing to non-iOS devices will cause unnecessary delays and obstruct critical support to approximately 80,000 Veterans including direct patient care services.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among resellers for brand name Apple devices and support care. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR

5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities website and a redacted version of this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted by VA technical experts in August 2020. The VA technical experts reviewed specifications from other PC/Laptop manufacturers included those from Dell and HP. After review, it was determined that hardware from other brand manufacturers werer incompatible with macOS as they run the Microsoft Windows Operating System. As such, there is no direct competition for Apple products. As further discussed in Section 5, Apple products only utilize the iOS operating system. Unlike Microsoft Windows which can operate on many manufactured PCs there is no other type of hardware which are compatible with the iOS operating system. Apple holds proprietary and exclusive rights to the Apple line of products including hardware, operating system software, application software and warranty and repair services.

Market research was conducted by Government representatives in February 2020 through an internet search on the Apple eCommerce website. Additional market research was conducted in June 2020 on the NASA SEWP website utilizing the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup Tool by the Government representatives. Both resulted in the identification of multiple resellers of the required brand name hardware and support services. This market research further indicated that the required hardware is offered by several Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) Contract Holders. As a result, there is reasonable expectation that limited competition exists on the NASA SEWP V GWAC for the brand name Apple MacBook Pro laptops, iMac desktops and AppleCare support. Additionally, the Contract Specialist also conducted research in August 2020 by utilizing the NASA SEWP Provider Lookup and found several resellers under the NASA SEWP V GWAC that are capable of meeting the full requirement; therefore, limited competition is anticipated.

9. Other Facts: Not Applicable