USDA, Office of Operations, POD, Room 1547-South Building, 14th & Independence Ave., SW, Washington,, DC 20250-9800

70 -- STERLING SOFTWARE DUE 031596 POC Contact Point, Bill Boyd, (202)720-8946 Sources Sought - The U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Finance Center (NFC) in New Orleans, LA intends to purchase a minimum of 15,000 copies of Sterling Software, 303 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City CA 94055, product STAR:Play. This product is the only product known to NFC which will run applications developed internally by NFC using Sterling Software's STAR:Develop. This is a commercially available product. Product descriptions are publicly available and will not be provided by NFC. The NFC provides ''cross- servicing'' ADP services, such as payroll, to many other Federal Agencies. The NFC intends to distribute Sterling Software products to its other Federal Agency client base over a sixty (60) month period in order for those clients to use NFC developed financial systems applications. The USDA encourages interested parties able to offer products with the same or similar capabilities to submit descriptive literature to the National Finance Center, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Financial and Management Control Office, P.O. Box 60000, New Orleans, LA 70160, attention Penny Forbes, Associate Director, Applications Systems Development Branch. Descriptive literature shall detail the alternative product's capabilities and how these compare to those of the Sterling Software products listed herein. No solicitation document exists. Requests for a copy of the RFP will not be acknowledged. In the event that an RFP is issued, the mailing list will include those parties responding to this notice provided they submit a letter request to Office of Operations address in this notice asking to be placed on any future mailing list. The Government will not pay for or return any literature submitted. Responses must be submitted within fifteen (15) days from the publication of this request. Telephone inquiries will not be accepted. (0058)

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