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Powers, Austin L
Pasquill, James
Proposals for the new SUNY study abroad directory
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 3:35:00 PM
New International Directory for SUNY Study Abroad.pdf
Zone5_SUNY Office International Education Website Development proposal 1....pdf
SUNYStudyAbroad.pdf
Re New International Directory for SUNY Study Abroad.msg

Hi Everyone,
I hope this message finds you all well. Im writing to you all today with an exciting update on the
new online SUNY International Directory. As you will recall, during this past falls CIE meeting,
approval from the committee was given to me and the rest of the CIE International Directory
subcommittee to put together a comprehensive RFP for the project (to be sent to relevant web
development companies). The contents of this RFP can be seen on the attached PDF entitled New
International Directory for SUNY Study Abroad.

This RFP was sent out to a variety of different web development companies in and around the
Albany region (to ensure that SUNYs IT team, SUNYs Office of International Programs, and I could
more easily meet with them in-person on a regular basis). These companies include:

Fingerpaint Marketing (http://fingerpaintmarketing.com/)

Zone 5 (http://zone5.com/)
The Black Sheep Agency (http://theblacksheepagency.com/)
mStoner (http://www.mstoner.com/)
Overit (http://overit.com/)

Each of these companies were selected as a result of their stated areas of expertise in web
development (more specifically, the ability to create a custom front-end site website that uses a
pre-existing database structure, which is what we need for our site). Of these five companies, three
ended up submitting proposals to us (those being mStoner, Zone 5, and Overit). See the attached
PDFs for more details on the proposals that each company submitted.

A summary of the prices for each company is as follows:

mStoner: $175,000+
Zone 5: $22,500 $27,500
Overit: $20,000 (includes $10,000 discount)

After extensive talks with each company, I believe that Overit is the company that is best suited for
this project for the following reasons:

1. Their price of $20,000 meets the CIEs stated budget for the project (which was
confirmed during the fall CIE meeting)
a. Overit graciously lowered the price by a full $10,000 to meet the CIEs stated
budget, since our office here at UAlbany has been working extensively with them for
our new website, and as such, they gave us a repeat customer discount.


2. They have the experience and expertise necessary to handle such a project
a. As Overits proposal states, For two decades Overit has transformed imagination
and concepts into tangible, branded solutions that exceed even the highest
expectations. We have helped regional, national and international clients move
beyond their visions with a balance of attentive service, high-impact deliverables and
superior communication. 37-strong in number, Overit consists of professionals who
excel with web design and development, content marketing, public relations,
video/motion development and audio production, search engine optimization, web
advertising and social media strategy supported by a management team with
experience in all disciplines of the marketing communications field.

b. More specifically, Overit can handle the technical aspects that are specific to this
project, as the company has:
i. An in-house Adobe ColdFusion programmer (since the programming for
SUNYs site is in ColdFusion)
ii. A variety of design specialists that are already familiar with SUNYs
marketing scheme, and can implement designs that keep SUNYs branding at
the center of the layout
iii. Developers that are able to create a responsive (or mobile-ready) site for us,
so that the new site will be optimized for all device (iPhones, Android
devices, etc.)

3. Theyre an excellent company to work with!

a. UAlbany Study Abroad & Exchanges has worked extensively with Overit since July on
our new website, and we have had an excellent experience with them. Not only is
their development team on the cutting edge of web development, but their project
managers are very thorough & easy to work with, they finish proposed work by
stated deadlines, and they do not cut corners in their development (which means
our site will be stable yet adaptable for many years to come).

b. Overits main office is also very conveniently located between the UAlbany campus
and SUNY System Administration. This means that members from SUNYs Office of
International Programs, SUNYs IT department, and I can easily meet with the
companys team members in-person to discuss development options (which will be
especially important at the beginning of the process).

I do not believe that we should consider the options with Zone 5 and mStoner for the following
reasons:

Zone 5- they do not have an in-house ColdFusion developer, and have proposed using a
different content management system altogether (WordPress) for the project. Given the
fact that we want to be able to use the same administration panel for all things (program
approvals, content management, etc.), it is essential that we have the site use SUNYs preexisting database / programming for the project.


o Zone 5s proposal would mean that we would be replicating our efforts between two
different sites (the marketing site through WordPress, and the program
management site through SUNYs pre-existing site). They are also more expensive
than the proposal put forth by Overit, and we have had no previous work experience
with them (which could be a huge risk).

mStoner- While I believe that mStoner would be able to handle the project, their stated
price makes them completely unviable (since they are at least $155,000 more expensive
than the option proposed by Overit.

Id ask that the CIE Steering Committee take the above stated feedback into consideration when
deciding on the appropriate company to develop our new website. It is my hope that we can come
to a consensus on a preferred company in the next week or so, so that we can start working on the
project as soon as possible.

If you have questions or concerns about any of this, please dont hesitate to get in contact with me.
Thanks in advance for your consideration, I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Best,
Austin

------------Austin Powers
Program Coordinator
Office of International Education, Science Library G-40
University at Albany - Albany, NY 12222
518-591-8170 (voice) 518-591-8171 (fax)
apowers@albany.edu