How to Write an RFP

1. The vendor must demonstrate a mature, replicable software development process. Certification for CMM Level 3 or greater or equivalent ISO standards preferred.

2. Describe the typical software development lifecycle within your organization.

3. The vendor must have a proven track record of delivering J2EE-compliant systems on the WebSphere platform. Describe your development process and tools you will use for developing the player.

4. Describe your bug tracking system.

5. The vendor must have a systems integration practice to install and perform initial startup of all delivered software. LotsaMedia will entertain proposals for hosted or "ASP" solutions, but these are not preferred.

6. Describe your SLA, support organization, and escalation procedures. The vendor should provide a 24/7 toll-free technical support hotline.

7. If the vendor will be embedding any of their own or somebody else’s proprietary intellectual property, please describe these technologies and the sub-license arrangements under which LotsaMedia will operate.

VI. Specific Player Requirements
The following describes the specific required functionality for LotsaMedia’s internet video player.

1. The player should be J2EE compliant and fully compatible with the Websphere platform.

2. The player should function on Mac OS X 10.1 or later, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.3. The player should be embeddable in a web browser. At minimum, the following browsers should be supported:

a. Internet Explorer 6.0 and later
b. Mozilla/Firefox 2.0 or later
c. Safari 1.2 and later

4. Supported video sizes and formats

a. The player should support both Flash 8 or later and Windows Media v9 or later video.
b. The video window should be 400x300 for SD content.
c. The player should support pre-roll Flash advertisements.

5. Metadata: The player will display the following metadata:

a. Title
b. Subtitle
c. Copyright
d. Author
e. Description

6. The player should have the following player controls and corresponding actions:

a. Play/Pause
b. Stop
c. Rewind
d. Fast Forward
e. Volume adjustment
f. Full Screen

7. Navigation

a. The player should be able to display content by subject matter groups.
b. Users should be able to navigate forward and back from one video in a group to the next as well as between groups.

8. Search: The player should have an inclusive search facility. This facility will search across all metadata for all content published into the player at execution time and present results in a "group" as described in Section 7.9. Interfaces and Configuration Parameters

a. Player should load all configuration elements that do not change frequently from an XML file, format to be specified later.
b. The player should load all relevant metadata and streaming URLs ("content" data) via XML substantially similar to the example provided in Attachment 1. This XML can be polled from an arbitrary URL that is configurable in the interface described in Section 6a.

10. Reporting and Metrics: There must be an online system for gathering, processing, and display of usage statistics. This must minimally report the following metrics:

a. Total users
b. Play counts by media and group
c. Average play time by media and group
d. Number of invocations of navigation controls
e. Top 10 search criteria
f. Users by OS, browser type and version, and Flash version