INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE - Open Geospatial Consortium-Principal Membership for NOAA/NESDIS/HQ

The United States Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data, Information Service Headquarters (NESDIS-HQ), intends to solicit, negotiate and award on a sole source basis a contract with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for the procurement of a Principal Membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium that will allow NOAA representatives the ability to participate in and vote in both the OGC Technical Committee (TC), helping culitvate the development of OGC standards, and the Planning Committee (PC).

This is a sole source procurement under the authority of FAR 13.501(a), utilizing simplified procedures for certain commercial items.The Government intends to award a contract to OGC due to only one source being able to meet the full capabilities and levels needed and required by the NESDIS-HQ program office. The OGC is the only group engaged in developing open standards for geospatial and location based services. It is for this reason that OGC is uniquely qualified to offer membership opportunities and provide the forum for working on technical requirements and standards based solution guidelines for geospatial data and services. Therefore, the OGC is the only vendor who can provide NOAA with these services.

Offerors that propose a solution using other than OGC must furnish detailed specifications and description to demonstrate their capability to provide NOAA representives the ability to participate in and vote in both the OGC Technical Committee (TC). To be considered, interested, parties must be able to demonstrate their ability to provide a comparable capability as outlined above. Capability information shall include, at minimum, name, telephone number, address of customers for which you have previously provided the capabilities and a detailed narrative that describes your company's ability. Interested parties must respond via email to the Contracting Specialist (bryton.curtis@noaa.gov) and Contracting Officer (mark.a.sullivan@noaa.gov) prior to the closing of this notice.

The NAICS code for this requirement is 611430. The Government intends to solicit and negotiate with the only known source, OGC. This is NOT a request for proposals and there is NO solicitation available at this time. The Government reserves the right to solicit quotes based on the receipt of affirmative responses to this posting without further notice. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to open competition to businesses other than OGC.