HomeMy WebLinkAboutRFP - 8924 RESIDENTIAL AND BUSINESS SUBSCRIBER EMAIL SOLUTIONSRFP 8924 Residential and Business Subscriber Mail Solutions Page 1 of 7
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #8924
RESIDENTIAL AND BUSINESS SUBSCRIBER EMAIL SOLUTIONS
FOR A FIBER-TO-THE-PREMISE (FTTP) BROADBAND NETWORK
The City of Fort Collins is requesting proposals from qualified firms to purchase and implement
all the necessary services for Residential and Business subscriber email solutions for a FTTP
Broadband Network. The City will consider either self-hosted or cloud-hosed solution(s).
As part of the City’s commitment to Sustainable Purchasing, proposals submission via
email is preferred. Proposals shall be submitted in a single Microsoft Word or PDF file
under 20MB and e-mailed to: purchasing@fcgov.com. If electing to submit a hard copy
proposal we require one (1) hard copy and one (1) electronic copy on a jump drive to be
received at the City of Fort Collins' Purchasing Division, 215 North Mason St., 2nd floor, Fort
Collins, Colorado 80524. Proposals must be received before 3:00 p.m. (our clock) on May
30, 2019 and referenced as Proposal No. 8924. If delivered, they are to be sent to 215 North
Mason Street, 2nd Floor, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524. If mailed, the address is P.O. Box 580,
Fort Collins, 80522-0580. Please note, additional time is required for bids mailed to the PO Box
to be received at the Purchasing Office.
The City encourages all Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) to submit proposals in
response to all requests for proposals. No individual or business will be discriminated against
on the grounds of race, color, sex, or national origin. It is the City’s policy to create a level
playing field on which DBEs can compete fairly and to ensure nondiscrimination in the award
and administration of all contracts.
All questions should be submitted, in writing via email, to Gerry Paul, Purchasing Director
at gspaul@fcgov.com, with a copy to Project Manager, Brad Ward, at bward@fcgov.com,
no later than 5:00 PM MST (our clock) on May 20, 2019. Please format your e-mail to include:
RFP 8924 Residential and Business Subscriber Email Solutions in the subject line. Questions
received after this deadline may not be answered. Responses to all questions submitted before
the deadline will be addressed in an addendum and posted on the Rocky Mountain E-Purchasing
System webpage.
Rocky Mountain E-Purchasing System hosted by Bidnet
A copy of the RFP may be obtained at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/colorado/city-of-fort-collins.
This RFP has been posted utilizing the following Commodity Code(s):
20844 E-Mail Software for Microcomputers
20854 Internet and Web Site Software for Microcomputers
20945 E-Mail Software for Mainframe Computers
20954 Internet and Web Site Software for Mainframe Computers
91551 Information Highway Electronic Services
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Public Viewing Copy: The City is a governmental entity subject to the Colorado Open Records
Act, C.R.S. §§ 24-72-200.1 et seq. (“CORA”). Any proposals submitted hereunder are subject
to public disclosure by the City pursuant to CORA and City ordinances. Firms may submit one
(1) additional complete proposal clearly marked “FOR PUBLIC VIEWING.” In this version of the
proposal, the Firm may redact text and/or data that it deems confidential or proprietary pursuant
to CORA. Such statement does not necessarily exempt such documentation from public
disclosure if required by CORA, by order of a court of appropriate jurisdiction, or other
applicable law. Generally, under CORA trade secrets, confidential commercial and financial
data information is not required to be disclosed by the City. Proposals may not be marked
“Confidential” or ‘Proprietary’ in their entirety. All provisions of any contract resulting from
this request for proposal will be public information.
New Firms: The City requires new Firms receiving awards from the City to fill out and submit an
IRS form W-9 and to register for Direct Deposit (Electronic) payment. If needed, the W-9 form
and the Firm Direct Deposit Authorization Form can be found on the City’s Purchasing website
at www.fcgov.com/purchasing under Firm Reference Documents. Please do not submit with
your proposal.
Sales Prohibited/Conflict of Interest: No officer, employee, or member of City Council, shall
have a financial interest in the sale to the City of any real or personal property, equipment,
material, supplies or services where such officer or employee exercises directly or indirectly any
decision-making authority concerning such sale or any supervisory authority over the services to
be rendered. This rule also applies to subcontracts with the City. Soliciting or accepting any gift,
gratuity favor, entertainment, kickback or any items of monetary value from any person who has
or is seeking to do business with the City of Fort Collins is prohibited.
Collusive or Sham Proposals: Any proposal deemed to be collusive or a sham proposal will
be rejected and reported to authorities as such. Your authorized signature of this proposal
assures that such proposal is genuine and is not a collusive or sham proposal.
The City of Fort Collins reserves the right to reject any and all proposals and to waive any
irregularities or informalities.
Utilization of Award by Other Agencies: The City of Fort Collins reserves the right to allow
other state and local governmental agencies, political subdivisions, and/or school districts to
utilize the resulting award under all terms and conditions specified and upon agreement by all
parties. Usage by any other entity shall not have a negative impact on the City of Fort Collins in
the current term or in any future terms.
Sincerely,
Gerry Paul
Purchasing Director
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City of Fort Collins
Request for Proposals (RFP) #8924
Residential And Business Subscriber Email Solutions
For A Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTP) Broadband Network
I. Section 1 – Project Background
Fort Collins is nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and alongside the banks of
the Cache La Poudre River. With an estimated population of 170, 000 (approximately 70,000
premises), Fort Collins is among the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas. The City
includes many assets and amenities that provide a competitive advantage including: Colorado
State University, abundant natural resources and agricultural land, highly educated and creative
workforce, a historic downtown, and many miles of trails, parks and bike paths. Fort Collins has
one of the highest rates of patents per capita in the world with a major research institution –
Colorado State University – a cluster of federal laboratories and such high-tech companies as
Hewlett-Packard, AMD, Intel and Broadcom.
During the Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO) community outreach in 2014, the community
prioritized and identified a need to address the lack of reliable, universal and affordable
broadband services. The City of Fort Collins addressed the broadband situation by identifying
the following strategic objective in the 2015/2016 & 2018 Strategic Plans:
“Strategic Objective 3.7 –Deploy reliable, high-speed internet services throughout the
community.”
The overall objective is to bring reliable, high speed internet to the city of Fort Collins, while
making an informed decision through evaluation of risk and opportunities. The FCC formally
defines broadband as internet download speed of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload
of 3Mbps or faster. However, a popular benchmark of high-speed broadband is commonly
known as gigabit speed (Gbps), and is seen in many cities across the country including
Longmont, CO. More information about the City’s Strategic Plan can be found at:
https://ourcity.fcgov.com/update-the-citys-2018-strategic-plan.
In November 2017, the citizens of Fort Collins approved ballot measure 2B, giving the City the
authority to provide high-speed broadband services to the community. In July 2018 Fort Collins
Connexion was unveiled as the City’s answer to Strategic Objective 3.7 to provide gigabit
broadband triple-play services.
II. Section 2 - Project Overview
The City of Fort Collins is soliciting proposals to purchase and implement all the necessary
services for Residential and Business subscriber email solutions for an FTTP Broadband
Network. The City will consider either self-hosted or cloud-hosed solution(s).
It is the intent of the City to provide broadband services, beginning with a phased roll-out
beginning in Q3 2019.
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These service tier solution(s) are required by the City:
(1) Residential email – Classic SMTP/IMAP email solution
a. The City will bundle Residential email accounts “free of charge” with each
Residential broadband subscriber account.
b. Calendar and Contact applications are not expected but are a plus if
available.
(2) Business email – Non-Microsoft Exchange collaboration email solution
a. Business email accounts will be sold to commercial subscribers.
b. Calendar and Contact applications must be included at a minimum
(3) Exchange email – Microsoft Exchange compatible email solutions
a. Business email accounts will be sold to commercial subscribers.
b. Office 365 applications may or may not be proposed as add-ons.
In addition, these implementation approaches are being considered by the City:
(1) Self-hosted solution
(2) Cloud-hosted solution
A respondent is encouraged to propose one or more solutions that meet one or more of these
service tiers and/or implementation approaches. Preference will be given when appropriate to
solutions which solve multiple needs on a single platform – for example, dual Business and
Residential email support and/or implementation approaches proposed for both self-hosted and
cloud-hosted environments.
The City’s OSS/CIS solution is Open Smartflex, which can be found here:
http://www.openintl.com/. Customers will be added via this interface and it is the primary
interface that our customer service representatives have into any existing customer status or
configurations.
Section III – Minimum Solution(s) Requirements
The proposed solutions will meet the following minimum requirements. Please include a
detailed response of the proposed solution(s) capabilities and/or how the proposed solution(s)
will meet these requirements.
• Describe browsers and mail client versions that are supported.
• Provide a technical support forum/group, etc.
• Provide an administrative interface. Please describe.
• Describe any support for flexible log rotation and retention options.
• Describe any support for DNS caching within the proposed solution.
• Describe the maximum number of Users, Domains, Sub-domains, and Post Offices
(user/domain groups) that are supported.
• Provide approximate sizing for average usage and mail volume for a user base of the
stated size.
• Provide mean inbound delivery time statistics.
• Provide maximum concurrent POP/IMAP/Webmail (cumulative) connections and
maximum number of inbound/outbound email per hour.
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• Must have the ability to integrate each proposed solution into the City’s Customer
Information System Open Smartflex via SOAP interface, shell script(s), etc. Provide
relevant API or SDK document(s).
• Describe any self-signup or self-provisioning capability that exists for the proposed
solution.
• Describe any self-service and/or admin-launched tools that exist for a customer to
migrate their email from another provider.
Preference will be given to solutions which meet the following additional requirements:
• Provide 24x7 technical support. Describe the availability and costs associated with
technical support of the solution including setup, first year, and subsequent years.
• Offer both Residential, Business, and/or Exchange solutions on a single platform.
• Offer an efficient migration path from a cloud-hosted to a self-hosted solution, as
needed. Please describe.
• Offer for business subscribers the Microsoft Office 365 Suite (Word/Excel/etc.) or similar
tools. Please describe.
• Describe how the proposed solution operates in a High Availability mode.
• Provide additional tools for collaborative use in a workspace (i.e. online storage,
personal calendar, chat).
• Compromised account detection to detect spam originating from within the system.
Additional RFP Deliverables:
• Provide all pricing options with available contract terms (per user, monthly, or yearly).
• Provide any non-recurring or installation fees associated with each proposed solution.
• Describe any integration services that are recommended to simplify or speed the
deployment of the proposed solution, as well as associated costs.
• Explain any pre-developed training or technical diagnostic procedures that are available
for the solution.
• Provide a description of support and escalation paths for any service impacting issues
for each solution proposed. Include response times for email, phone, and chat support
during and outside of regular business hours.
• Provide applicable Service Level Agreements (SLA) for each solution in the proposal.
• Describe and/or provide any white label marketing materials for the solution.
• Describe the business and/or technical relationship of the respondent’s (your)
organization to the developer of the proposed solution.
• Discuss the ability of the solution or your organization (please specify) to provide
authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) hosting and any available
configuration/management tools.
• Provide estimated timelines for installation of each proposed solution. The City would
expect services to be installed and available by June 24th, 2019.
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Section IV – RFP Response Format
The RFP response must contain answers to the following questions in this order and format.
1. Fill out the attached Features Response Matrix with either Yes/No or an appropriate
brief answer and include the file attached to your RFP response. Fill in one or more
columns as appropriate for the solution(s) that are proposed.
2. Provide a detailed response to address each Requirement and Additional
Deliverable specified in Section III above.
3. Provide a detailed list of any features and technical specifications of any proposed
solution(s).
4. Provide a detailed list of compatible/recommended virtualization platforms,
compatible operating systems, and hardware requirements/recommendations for
each proposed solution.
5. Provide a detailed list of any cancellation penalties or early termination fees as
applicable.
6. Include installation and turn-up timelines for each solution proposed.
7. Provide a sample contract and/or license for each solution including Service Level
Agreement(s).
Section V – Other Details
Anticipated Schedule
The following represents the City’s target schedule for the RFP. The City reserves the
right to amend the target schedule at any time.
• RFP issuance: May 10, 2019
• Question deadline: 5:00 PM MST on May 20, 2019
• Proposal due date: 3:00 MST (our clock) on May 30, 2019
• Interviews/Demos via Webex: Week of June 3rd, 2019
• Award of Contract (tentative): June 2019
Interviews/Demonstrations
In addition to submitting a written proposal, the top-rated firms may be interviewed and
provided an opportunity to demonstration the proposed solution(s) for the project team.
Subcontractors
Firms will be responsible for identifying any subcontractors in their proposal. Please note
that the City will contract solely with the awarded firm, therefore subcontractors will be the
responsibility of the firm.
Laws and Regulations
The firm agrees to comply fully with all applicable local, State of Colorado and Federal
laws and regulations and municipal ordinances.
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Section VI – Review and Assessment Criteria
Proposal and Interview/Demonstration Criteria
Firms will be evaluated on the following criteria. These criteria will be the basis for review
and assessment of the written proposals and optional interview session. At the discretion
of the City, interviews of the top-rated Firms may be conducted.
WEIGHTING
FACTOR
CRITERIA
50% Assessment of the proposed solution(s)
15% Time and resources required to implement and support
35%
Proposed value including costs for implementation, licensing,
and recurring annual maintenance
Reference Evaluation Criteria
Prior to award, the City may check references and negative responses from references
may impact the award determination.