SPOK Software upgrade-J_A Signed. redacted_Redacted.pdf

Control Number VA-22-00057988

JUSTIFICATION FOR A SOLE SOURCE AWARD

FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs

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

2. Description of Action: The proposed sole source action is for award of a firm-fixed price (FFP) contract for upgrade of perpetual brand name licenses and ancillary support services to SPOK Inc (SPOK), 5911 Kingstowne Village PKWY STE 600, Alexandria, VA 22315.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Durham VA Health Care System (Durham VAHCS) has a requirement to upgrade its currently deployed suite of perpetual brand name SPOK System software licenses. This suite of licenses are currently hosted on the SPOK Console, and include the following: SPOK Administrator Workstation License, Website License, Messaging Application, Contact Center Site and Single Sign On.

Under this effort, the Contractor shall upgrade these licenses to the most current release of the software, which is Version 7.14. The currently deployed SPOK software is end of life and is no longer supported. Included as part of this requirement, VA must bring current lapsed maintenance on the historical perpetual licenses.

SPOK shall provide installation and deployment support of the upgraded version of SPOK software procured under this agreement. This installation and deployment shall include additional support services, such as, but not limited to server and software configuration, remote configuration and set up services, data base upgrades, user acceptance testing support, “go live” support and training support. Specifically, the contractor shall perform all tasks to ensure system solution upgrade is completed no later than 2 months after contract award. Services shall be provided during normal VA working hours (Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST) and normal Federal working days. These services shall be completed remotely to the locally hosted VA IT infrastructure/server. Further, SPOK shall provide virtual application training (not to exceed 2 hours) after deployment.

Additionally, under this effort the Contractor shall provide maintenance of the software and solution. Maintenance shall include software updates/upgrades (both major/minor releases) and pushes and patches. Additionally, the contractor shall provide telephonic help desk support on a 24/7/365 basis.

The period of performance of this effort shall be from date of award through September 30, with one 12-month option-for continued maintenance. The total effort shall not exceed 15 months. The total estimated value of this effort, inclusive of options is

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 1903 as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.501, entitled “Special Documentation Requirements”.

Brand Name SPOK Software Upgrade and Control Number VA-22-00057988 Support Services

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on Market Research, as noted in Section 8 of this document, it was determined that only the proposed source, SPOK, could meet the Government’s requirements.

Specifically, the proposed action includes upgrade of the existing perpetual licenses that are in use at the Durham VAHCS. These licenses expand on the capability for the paging communication of the already deployed commercial pagers in use at Durham VAHCS. Currently, the versions of the required software in use are end of life and requires upgrade in order to adjudicate security vulnerabilities. Any such software must be compatible and able to seamlessly interoperate with the deployed pagers, which are also SPOK brand name products. Both of these products are configured based on proprietary software coding and hardware. Introduction of an alternative software solution is unacceptable as it introduces risk that pages will not be received and/or that they will be encoded/displayed incorrectly. In order for VA to introduce an alternative solution, it must completely replace its existing paging solution at Durham VAHCS. VA estimates that this would cost up to $800,000.00 in order to replace the existing servers, pagers, and software. This information is based on historical information. Further, during that time, Durham VAHCS would have to run and maintain the existing paging solution and software. As such, these duplicative costs would not be recouped through a competitive action.

Further, SPOK is the only source that can provide the required installation and deployment technical support services to support the upgrade of the software solution and its environment. Specifically, under this effort, the contractor will be required to customize the server and configure the upgrade of the software to ensure seamless operation with the paging solution deployed at Durham VAHCS. In order for this upgrade to occur, a source must have access to the proprietary software code in order to properly configure and test the interaction of the updated software, the configured server, and the interoperability with the deployed SPOK hardware. This will require access to the software code and the pagers, which are both proprietary to SPOK.

Additionally, SPOK is the only source that can provide the required ongoing maintenance for the solution once upgrade is complete. A responsible source must have access to both the proprietary software code and access to the proprietary pager network in order to develop and push any updates to the software or pushes/patches that seamless interoperate with the deployed instance. As noted previously, both of these can only be performed by SPOK given that the access and source code are proprietary to SPOK.

Given the above, VA must secure the required licenses and support as proposed.

Failure to procure these services would lead to degraded care of the Veteran.

Specifically, these services directly support of current workflows. This hinders the Agency from fulfilling its mission of providing the best healthcare and support services to the Veteran.

Brand Name SPOK Software Upgrade and Control Number VA-22-00057988 Support Services

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received shall be evaluated.

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

8. Market Research: VA’s Technical experts conducted market research for like solutions via review of potential competitor websites, to include TigerConnect, Inc., CellTrust Corpration and Turn-key Technologies, Inc. Based on the review of these potential sources and their offerings/capabilities, VA determined that none of these sources had access to the required software, nor to the proprietary software code or pager network necessary to accomplish this task as noted in Section 5. As such, only SPOK can provide the required services.

Additionally, SPOK confirmed to the Contracting Officer via letter dated June 16, 2022 that it does not resell these services. As such, there is no expectation of competition of this effort.

9. Other Facts: N/A