Market Research Guidelines - Software applications and operating systems

Corresponding Rule

Case Study #1

1. Scenario
2. Summary of Market Research
3. Develop a requirements document (Functional and Technical Requirements)
4. Identify Section 508 Requirements that Apply - Section 1194.21
5. Identify Vendors
6. Distribute requirements (Functional, technical and Section 508) to Vendors
7. Evaluate Vendors Results

Scenario

Your boss has come to you asking for a Market Research analysis to find the best vendor to develop a software application for a new procurement system. Your boss has informed you that funding is not an issue.

Bureau X has a disabled population of 25%, also the Finance Manager is blind and the Personnel Manager is paraplegic.

Market Research

A meeting was called for all involved parties (program staff, IT staff, and procurement representative) to discuss the technical and functional needs of the organization regarding the development of a procurement system. We all wanted to ensure that the software application met the Bureau's business needs and would deliver certain capabilities, including Section 508 tenets. Although Bureau X has a disabled population of approximately 25%, the requiring official wanted to work from the standpoint of 508 adherence in line with the business needs. We agreed that this application would be as 508 conforming as possible based on market availability.

All parties voiced the projected capabilities for the new procurement software application. The consensus was that Bureau X needed an application to:

Support Contract Management

• Solicitation Preparation
• RFP Advertisement and Distribution
• Proposal Acceptance
• Award
• Contract Modification
• Contract Closeout
• Audit Support

Support Requisition Processing

• Review and Approval
• Purchase Orders
• System Administration and Reporting
• Financial Interface
• FedBizOpps
• Reconciliation
• Receiving

Users: Approximately 2,000 acquisition specialists (i.e., contracting officers) throughout the Bureau will use Bureau X procurement software (BXPS) to issue Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and Requests for Quotations (RFQs), manage vendor contracts, and commit funds for purchases greater than $2,500. Also, authorized non-procurement personnel, including purchase card holders would use the system.

Environment

The solution shall run on one ore more of the following operating systems - Windows XP, Sun Solaris 2.6, Hewlett Packard Unix (HP-UX).

The solution shall operate in one or more of the following platforms - IBM RS/6000, HP 9000, Intel Pentium, Sun Sparc.

The solution shall support one or more of the following databases - Oracle 8 or greater, Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

Technical Requirements

This document defines the technical requirements for the software that will constitute the overall Bureau X Procurement System (BXPS). In addition to supporting the functional requirements, the acquired software must also adhere to a set of technology-based parameters drawn from two other sources:

1. BXPS shall serve as the backbone for and integrate with other bureau functional modules and, in some cases external services. BXPS shall provide and support industry standard and emerging capabilities that enable important functional interfaces at the technology layer.
2. The BXPS software shall operate reliably and efficiently within the current and target Bureau X information technology environment.

Although not always explicitly stated, this document assumes that state-of-the-art solutions will be proposed and assessments will be made in that context. Therefore, not all obvious industry best practices in areas as software usability, user interface, context sensitive help, printing, data entry validation, error traps and messages, system back up capability, n-tiered server-side architecture will be culled out. However, there are some value-added requirements that enable the documented, desired BXPS functionality, maximize cross-module and external integration, and support the seamless deployment of the BXPS module into the Bureau X IT environment.

Bureau X Procurement System
Technical Requirements Detail

Functional Requirements Detail

Results of Market Research

Experience with BuyAccessible - VPATS are not equal, some provide more information than others and some provide just enough information to warrant a meeting with a potential vendor.

Services Search

• System design - 0 matches
• System development - 0 matches
• Programming - 16 matches with 6 capable of custom design and transactional based applications
• Procurement - 5 matches, 1 site offers 508 market research for purchasers the another was for acquisition services, 2 matches were for 508 training, the final match was for assessing an agency's performance
• Technical design - 0 matches
• Software Applications - 2 matches that were not acceptable

Product Search

• Hardware - 7 matches 1 potential match
• Software Applications - 1 match, JAWS for Windows

Contacting knowledgeable individuals in Government and industry regarding market capabilities to meet requirements.

• Good source of information. Federal staffs are usually willing to share information with their colleagues in other agencies.
• Fosters good working relationships with colleagues in other Federal agencies.

Querying Government databases that provide information relevant to agency acquisitions.

• The General Services Administration has a White Paper entitled Acquisition Sources & Alternatives that provides numerous prospects for a Procurement System that is 508 conforming. The white paper was developed to help requiring officials and procurement officials find the best fit for a specific need.
• In the past, agencies seeking to meet a custom requirement through a development contract often chosen to conduct a labor intensive full and open competitive source selection which often time took years to complete.
• Now requiring officials may wish to choose from a number of GWAC and multi-agency task order contracts awarded with system development as their primary focus.
• The availability of GWAC and multi-agency task orders without the time and effort of a formal source selection makes these vehicles a very attractive option.
• GSA Financial Management Systems Software Schedule was the choice of the 508 Marketeers. Nine vendors were available for our consideration, we weeded them out to three choices based on ability to provide needed requirements, vendor reputation, and past performance on similar projects.

Exhibits/ Trade Shows

• Good leads

Comparison of software applications and operating systems to 508 standard

Case Study #2

1. Assignment
2. Identify Applicable Section 508 Standard and Exemption Status
3. Assumptions
4. Vendor Product Research
5. Product Analysis

Assignment

Our task was to perform market research for the procurement of operating systems software.

Identify Applicable Section 508 Standard and Exemption Status

For our criteria, we focused on Section 508 Subpart B - Technical Standards, section 1194.21: Software applications and operating systems. In real-life procurement, market research would also include other criteria based on business needs and other market factors. Because operating systems software is generally accessible, some of these other criteria may receive more weighting in the selection process than the Section 508 criteria.

We determined from the FAQ's, section G.5.ii, paragraph 3, that operating systems software installed on servers is not subject to the so-called "back office" exemption. The reason is that operating systems software can be operated from a remote workstation. For this reason, we did not want to exclude "server-only" operating systems products from our market research. The 508 standards make no distinction whether the user is a general user or on the IT staff, or whether the tasks they are trying to accomplish are general tasks or system administration tasks.

Assumptions

We assumed no standard hardware platform or environmental requirement was in place. We decided our scope would be to do market research on Section 508 requirements against desktop and server operating systems products.

Vendor Product Research

We researched several operating systems products:

• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Novell Netware 6
• Apple Mac OS X 10.2
• Red Hat Linux 8.0

Microsoft Windows 2000 is available as both a desktop operating systems and a server operating systems. We researched the following Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs):
http://www.microsoft.com/usa/government/Windows2000_VPAT.doc
http://www.microsoft.com/usa/government/Windows_2000_Server_VPAT.doc

Novell Netware 6 is available as a server operating systems. We researched the VPAT:
http://www.novell.com/accessibility/nw6_accessibility.html
The VPAT contained columns for both product interfaces running on the client workstation, as well as product interfaces running on the server only.

Apple Mac OS X 10.2 is available as both a desktop operating systems and a server operating systems, and did not have a VPAT available. Instead, we researched the following:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/universalaccess.html
Apple makes the statement that "The system goes beyond the requirements of the U.S. federal government's Section 508 Accessibility statute." One could assume this means all standards are fully supported, but this would need to be verified. It is also unclear if this statement applies only to the desktop version, or if it also applies to the server version.

Red Hat Linux 8.0 had this accessibility statement available:
http://tux.cprm.net/pub/ftp.redhat.com/8.0/en/os/i386/README- Accessibility
It referred VPAT inquiries to Red Hat's legal department. We contacted the legal department, and were told that they were in the process of finalizing the VPAT. In the meantime, we found a VPAT for Red Hat Linux 7.2 in Google's cache. It listed support for the standards using Linux in console mode, using the KDE Desktop, and using the GNOME Desktop.

It should be noted that when using VPATs, we are basically taking the vendor's word on how well their products meet the standards.

Product Analysis

We developed a comparison grid with the results of how well each product conforms to the standards in Section 508 Subpart B Section 1194.21, the software and operating systems technical standard.

LEGEND:
E='SUPPORTED WITH EXCEPTIONS'
ME='SUPPORTED WITH MINOR EXCEPTIONS'
NA='NOT APPLICABLE'
S='FULLY SUPPORTED'

Novell
(Client) = Product interfaces running on the client workstation.
(Server) = Product interfaces running on the server only.

Apple
S? = "The system goes beyond the requirements of the U.S. federal government's Section 508 Accessibility statute."

Red Hat
(console) = in console mode
(KDE) = using KDE Desktop
(GNOME) = using the GNOME Desktop