This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, in conjunction with FAR 13.5, and as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation number is 1045-647912 and is issued as a request for quotation (RFQ). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular NA. The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 334111 with a small business size standard of 1,000 employees. This requirement is unrestricted and only interested offerors may submit a quote. The solicitation pricing on www.FedBid.com will start on the date this solicitation is posted and will end on Friday, July 21, 2006 at 00:00:00 Eastern Time or as otherwise displayed at www.FedBid.com. FOB Destination shall be Arlington, VA 22209

The Department of State requires the following items, EXACT MATCH ONLY, to the following:
LI 001, Base Unit: Dual Core, 2.8GHz/2x2MB Cache Xeon 800MHz FSB for PowerEdge 2850 (222-0209) Processor: Dual Core, 2.8GHz/2x2MB Cache Xeon 800MHz FSB, 2nd processorfor PowerEdge 2850 (311-5402) Memory: 8GB DDR2 400MHz (4X2GB), Dual Ranked DIMMs (311-3605) Keyboard: No Keyboard Selected (310-5017) Monitor: No Monitor Option (320-0058) Video Memory: Riser,ROMB,PCI-X,PE2850 (320-3977) Hard Drive: 4X73GB,U320,SCSI,1IN 15K PE2850 (341-1322) Hard Drive Controller: Embedded RAID - PERC4 Embedded Integrated (341-1506) Floppy Disk Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive (341-1308) Operating System: No Operating System, Microsoft (420-4077) Mouse: Mouse Option None (310-0024) NIC: INTEL 1000MT DUAL PORT GB,NIC (430-1039) Modem: Dell Remote Access Card, 4th Generation, for PowerEdge (313-2695) CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive: 24X IDE CD-ROM (313-2700) Sound Card: Bezel for PE2850 (313-2693) Speakers: 1x6 Hard Drive Backplane PE2850 (311-4282) Documentation Diskette: Electronic Documentation and OpenManage CD Kit, PE2850 (310-5474) Feature MR5, ROMB RAID 5, Drives attached to PERC4ei,PE2850 (341-1356) Feature Rack Chassis w/Rapid Rails forDell, HPQ or other Square HoleRacks, PE2850 (310-5462) Service: Premier Enterprise Support -Complex Resolutions w/AdvancedSoftware Support - 3 Pack -Exp. 3 Years (950-0117) Service: Premier Enterprise Support Service Gold Welcome Letter (310-3785) Service: Premier Enterprise On Demand Engineer Dispatch Severity 1 Three Years (970-0237) Service: Type 2 Contract Same Day 4HR Parts and Labor On-Site Response,Initial Year (902-4600) Service: Type 2 Contract Same Day 4HR Parts and Labor On-Site Response,Two Years (902-3262) Service: Premier Enterprise Support - Gold - Premium Services, 3 Years (902-7352) Service: Thank You for buying Dell (983-2207) Service: Please visit WWW.Dell.COM (983-2217) Service: Dell Education Services OnlineEnterprise Training included w/purchase, take courses at LearnDell.com 90-Day Acc (983-7037) Installation: On-Site Installation Declined (900-9997) Misc: Redundant Power Supply With Y-CORD and Straight Cords PE2850 (310-5461), 4, EA;

For this solicitation, Department of State intends to conduct an online competitive reverse auction to be facilitated by the third-party reverse auction provider, FedBid, Inc. FedBid has developed an online, anonymous, browser based application to conduct the reverse auction. An Offeror may submit a series of pricing quotes, which descend in price during the specified period of time for the aforementioned reverse auction. Department of State is taking this action in a an effort to improve vendor access and awareness of requests while expediting its ability to gather multiple, completed, real-time offers. All responsible Offerors that respond to this solicitation MUST submit the pricing portion of their offer using the online exchange located at www.FedBid.com. There is no cost to register, review procurement data or make an offer on www.FedBid.com. Offerors that are not currently registered to use www.FedBid.com should proceed to www.FedBid.com to complete their free registration. Offerors that require special considerations or assistance may contact the FedBid Helpdesk at 877-9FEDBID (877-933-3243) or via email at [email protected]. Offerors may not artificially manipulate the price of a transaction on www.FedBid.com by any means. It is unacceptable to place bad faith offers, to use decoys in the www.FedBid.com process or to collude with the intent or effect of hampering the competitive www.FedBid.com process. Should offerors require additional clarification, contact Ruby Green at [email protected] or FedBid.com at 877-9FEDBID (877-933-3243) or [email protected].

Dell PowerEdge 2850 Server equipped with dual core Intel Xenon processors with 2 MB L2 caches per socket as the optimal mid-sized platform to support the Congressionally mandated 2008 Diversity Visa program. The introduction and use of dual core technology is deemed essential to the successful conduct of the Diversity Visa program as it is the most cost effective means of enabling the Bureau to increase processing speeds by more than 50%. The processors will provide the Oracle SW application with extra caching capabilities and the additional memory will enhance the Bureau’s ability to maintain operational status in the event of unexpected memory failures. In summation, the Dell PowerEdge 2850 w/dual core Intel Xenon processor was judged to offer the most power and redundancy of any server of its class, and was determined to be best suited to support the Diversity Visa program. The Dell PowerEdge 2850 Server was selected for this purpose because results obtained by the Bureau’s Systems Engineering Task Team in tests and reviews of other manufacturer’s servers indicated that it most closely met the Department of State’s throughput, processing and redundancy requirements. It has been approved by the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Configuration Control Board and is being added to the Consular HW Baseline. The requested servers will be deployed at a DoS facility which, in the interests of overall cost economy, reliability, and ease of administration, has established an environment comprised solely of Dell HW. The continued use of Dell servers obviates the need to procure, maintain and account for spare parts inventories for multiple HW manufacturer’s server configurations or to manage multiple vendor’s out years support and maintenance agreements. The Dell PowerEdge 2850 servers are to replace older equipment and must be deployed, installed, configured, tested and integrated in the production environment in time to go live prior to October 4, 2006, the initiation date of the 2008 Diversity Visa program. CA/CST therefore must take physical possession of this HW no later than August 15, 2006. Even if another manufacturer’s server identical to the PowerEdge2850 in terms of specifications, configuration and functionality were to become available at this juncture, it could not be evaluated and baselined in time to ensure that it would be requisitioned, competed, obtained, and otherwise readied for use by October 4, 2006. The servers will be used to support a highly visible and significant Congressionally mandated program and absolutely no slippage can be allowed in its initiation date. The vendor may not substitute any item listed on this order with out prior, written approval from the USDOS Contracting Officer. No other individual is authorized, either verbally or in writing to change part numbers, manufacturer, quantity, delivery dates, or any other specification of this RFQ. Items that do not confirm to descriptions and part numbers found in this RFQ will be rejec 0044 ted at the time of delivery causing a return at the vendors expense. Bid MUST be good for 30 calendar days after submission New equipment ONLY, NO remanufactured products Agencies may require registration with the Central Contractor Registry (CCR) prior to receipt of order. Information can be found at www.ccr.gov

Bid Protests Not Available