Differentiated Price Evaluation (Incumbent vs. Potential New Vendor)

[ContractJockey]

Has anybody out there put out a solicitation which states the government's intention to evaluate an incumbent contractor's proposed solution in one manner and any other contractor's proposed solution in another way?

Let's say, for example, that you currently own perpetual software licenses from Vendor 1 that perform a particular function and you also want the maintenance and support for those licenses for a base plus four option year period. You would like to maximize competition and allow Vendor 2 who has a competing software to be part of the competition as well and they have a similar pricing model; purchase of perpetual licenses which come with one year of maintenance and support followed by four optional years of maintenance and support. In this case, since you already own Vendor 1's perpetual licenses, you'd do the price evaluation for their proposed solution based on the price of their base year of maintenance and support plus each of the four optional years of maintenance and support but not the perpetual licenses because you already own them and in the case of Vendor 2, you'd do the price evaluation based on the purchase of perpetual licenses plus each of the four optional years. Seems viable and fair to me and I'm sure that I have done this subconsciously in my own purchasing life but I haven't done it in the professional environment. If any of you have any experience with this or something similar, have any examples of solicitations that have appropriate wording, or have any case law examples that has settled any protests that arose from solicitations with similar circumstances, please share. 

[ji20874]

The evaluation should be on the cost the Government will incur.  This is most commonly done for transportation costs when the Government pays for shipping (fr example, see FAR 52.247-47).  But it can also be for other costs, such as testing or qualification costs, training costs, inspection costs, re-configuration costs, or license costs -- estimates of the Government cost should be added to the proposed contract price for the price/cost evaluation.  This is not evaluating offerors differently -- this is evaluating offerors fairly.

Will this work for solicitation text?

• PRICE EVALUATION.  The Government's evaluation of an offeror's price will include an adjustment for other costs the Government may incur if it accepts that offer.  An estimate of these other costs will be added to the offer price to determine the Government's overall cost.  These other costs may include ________ (contracting officer fill-in).

[ContractJockey]

ji20874,

Yes, I think that could work. I'm sure that I'd put my own spin on it if I were to end up doing this but it's a good starting point. One of the reasons that I have asked this question is because I have seen so any sole-source and brand name justifications over the years that are based on something like: "the government currently owns perpetual licenses for Software X which is published by Software Company A, the government has a need to keep these licenses updated with the most recent functional updates and security patches, only Software Company A publishes security patches for Software X, therefore the government must purchase the required functional updates and security patches for Software X from Software Company A or one of its authorized resellers". 

Increasing competition while not having to polish the turd of a justification that I'd be given seems like a win to me. Thanks for the info!