Google Wins Injunction Against Agency Using Microsoft Cloud 187
jfruhlinger writes "A judge has granted an injunction stopping the US Department of the Interior from moving forward with the adoption of Microsoft's cloud services. The injunction was sought by Google, which of course has its own suite of cloud offerings. Google claimed that the Interior Dept. failed to consider other options as required."
No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly.
Take an airplane, for example. A screw for it could easily cost $2 or more each, when you can get 1 lb of identical screws at the hardware store for $5 or probably a few cents each. But that aircraft screw comes with a document that can trace the metal it's made of all the way to the mine and even ore batch, should it be necessary.
That grease? Same thing. Tracability sometimes is quite important, and it costs a lot of money to maintain that paper trail...
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That grease? Same thing. Tracability sometimes is quite important, and it costs a lot of money to maintain that paper trail.
Really? Competent businesses aren't keeping these records (electronically) as part of their normal supply chain process? That's somewhat sad to hear the government needs to pay extra for them to keep their own proper records that they'd use in day-to-day quality control.
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:4, Informative)
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They have this data somewhere. They could tell you if they really cared. But we're talking about Best Buy and Acer here, and they don't, so they won't.
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THEY couldn't even tell me which video card my laptop came with, even after giving them a serial and model number.
I had this problem several years back with an HP I bought...
Was having trouble with the AGP, did some research, and found that there were updated drivers available. But nobody could tell me what was on my motherboard.
I called up HP, gave them every number that was on the machine, and they still couldn't tell me. There were three different motherboards that went into my particular model, and they had absolutely no idea which it might be.
These days I run into the same thing very routinely with Dell machines
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I had this problem several years back with an HP I bought...
Was having trouble with the AGP, did some research, and found that there were updated drivers available. But nobody could tell me what was on my motherboard.
Look harder next time. [hp.com] Put in your serial number and it'll tell you every part in your system.
These days I run into the same thing very routinely with Dell machines. Two different machines built to the same specifications might wind up with significantly different hardware inside.
Same thing with Dell. [dell.com] Put in your express service code, then click "Original System Configuration." The information is out there you just need to look.
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Look harder next time. Put in your serial number and it'll tell you every part in your system.
Either that web page didn't exist at the time, or the folks at HP didn't know about it.
Same thing with Dell. Put in your express service code, then click "Original System Configuration." The information is out there you just need to look.
Yup. Like I said - At least it isn't too hard to figure out which one is right these days.
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Look harder next time. Put in your serial number and it'll tell you every part in your system.
Either that web page didn't exist at the time, or the folks at HP didn't know about it.
Same thing with Dell. Put in your express service code, then click "Original System Configuration." The information is out there you just need to look.
Yup. Like I said - At least it isn't too hard to figure out which one is right these days.
Those pages have existed for at *least* 7 years, because I recall using them during my fall semester in 2003 while working for the school's computer services group
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Look harder next time. Put in your serial number and it'll tell you every part in your system.
Either that web page didn't exist at the time, or the folks at HP didn't know about it.
Those pages have existed for at *least* 7 years, because I recall using them during my fall semester in 2003 while working for the school's computer services group
This would have been roughly 1999/2000ish.
I had a problem with an AGP card under Windows 98 and was hopeful that the upcoming release of Windows 2000 would make it work better.
And it is entirely possible that web page did exist at the time. But I was on dial-up back then, and the Internet was not my first source of information. I did look around HP's website, but didn't find anything terribly useful. I wound up looking up some model number printed on the motherboard itself. The information I found point
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Some of the problem is which Dell or HP line you are using. The consumer machines are built to be cheap, therefore they have whichever component was cheap at the time. The commercial level machines are all built the same, and often machines from the same line can use the same drivers, even years later. Dell's line is the Latitude line, they are built better, and they have a standard set of parts.
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As your Username says, TooMuchToDo. I don't want to pay companies to push that much paper around on desks for everything that I buy. It's important in some instances and needless in other instances.
I don't mean literally 'paper on desks' mind you. Any form of recordkeeping has a cost associated with it. Furthermore, you can lose the important data in a sea of irrelevant data if you retain everything.
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I'm saying there is limited additional cost involved. You need to know that X materials came from vendors, was put into Y products, and was shipped to Z customers or resellers. This is not about extra paperwork, it's about properly accounting for what you already need to keep track of your business.
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I've never seen a box of screws with a serial number on it or any information that makes it any more identifiable then the next box of the same brand screws. Probably because that information isn't that important. It would cost a lot of money for some big company selling screws to home depot to serialize and keep track of every box of screws they manufacture. They'd have to add another step to their manufacturing process plus they'd need a decently powerful system with a very large database that can handle
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The standard method of quality control used in industry is to do tests on randomly selected items from a given production run.
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Why would you? If you're just making a box of wood screws for the Home Depot, it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever need or want that information. So why go to the expense of keeping it?
On the other hand, the military (and some other applications) may not need that information either, if everything goes just fine. However, they are willing to pay to make sure that information is kept, just in case. That, and the rigerous amount of testing that those parts go through is what causes the price bump.
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Because if you make a bad batch of product, no matter what the product is, you can be liable for the value of the product and have to cough it up if your resellers/brick and mortars decide they want the money back they fronted for said defective product.
You don't understand MIL-spec testing (Score:5, Informative)
MIL spec tests are very stringent. In the case of lubricants (solid film) tests such as Falex pressure loads and minimum run times are critical. Different batches made with the same ingredients often yield quite different test results. The QC of mil spec lubricants cost more than the raw materials where I worked for 22 years. If the military wants to make certain its planes, and missiles, fly without critical parts seizing up or smart missiles landing a mile away because the solid film lubricant wasn't quite as durable as expected, then testing and certification is critical. Every test fluid, machine, etc all must be certified to high quality standards. You think the cheap crap at the store is the same as MIL spec materials, simply because the have the same ingredients? You are very wrong.
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You think the cheap crap at the store is the same as MIL spec materials, simply because the have the same ingredients?
I think in many cases the product at the store is superior in every way except variability, and further that in most of those cases the minimum results are in excess of the mil-spec. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions; when you get a single nut out of its own cardboard box with bubble wrap, that's because that's what it takes to be able to ship that nut anywhere in the world and still have it arrive in spec so that it can be installed into a multi-million dollar aircraft's engine. I don't know if the
Varability is another component (Score:4, Interesting)
As an example I've played around with DIY audio stuff and something that lots of enthusiasts like using is Vishay-Dale milspec resistors. Seems kinda silly, using milspec resistors in something like a headphone amp, until you look at their properties. You can get them with extremely tight tolerances, and with low variance over temperatures. They are very good if you want to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting over a wide range of conditions. They are also good at dealing with the unexpected. Like maybe you are worried that the power might be able to momentary exceed the resistors rating. No problem, the milspec parts deal with that, a 1/4 watt resistor can actually handle 1/2 watt with no damage, at least for a bit.
Now you may well not need to buy milspec parts to get that, however those parts DO get you that. Their milspec resistors are above and beyond normal cheap resistors in what they are willing to certify. When the idea is hand building something with very tight tolerances (in the case of an audio amp tightly matched tolerances means the amp should have a minimal impact on the sound) it is a choice that can make sense.
Then, speaking of tolerances and variability, even within the line there are differences. You may find that for a given type of 1/4 watt 1k resistor you can get it in 1%, 0.5% and 0.1% at an ever increasing price. They all seem to be made the same, it isn't like the 0.1% is a different design, like some of the really high precision ones. Well the deal is that when they make them, they come out different. So they test them and batch them. If you buy 1% parts, they are only guaranteeing the resistance to be between 1000 and 1010 ohms. Good enough for most uses, however if you need it tighter they sell ones that are tested to be closer to 1000 ohms and guaranteed, hence the tighter ratings. Costs more though, as many of them don't come out that perfect.
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I was stationed at Dover AFB in 1971, and if you saw all the problems with the then-new C5As, you'd understand why that piece of paper was absolutely necessary. Engines falling off the plane in flight, landing gear failing to retract, tail booms falling over (that killed a couple of guys and grounded the whole fleet for months), etc.
For want of a nail a shoe was lost; for want of a shoe a horse was lost; for want of a horse a war was lost.
When a hundred million dollar aircraft and its plot and crew are at s
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Trouble with specifying lube is that if it isn't mil-spec it might be ChiCom mystery goo that eats bearings. In many cases a Suitable Substitute would do.
Semi-OT, and note the choice of uniforms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnPu-kk_eOA [youtube.com]
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Apparently they run the Department of the Interior like the Air Force. I remember waiting four weeks and paying $80 for three ounces of a very specific lithium grease for some of our equipment that had an extremely similar clone at Lowe's for $4.
An "extremely similar clone" is often not a good replacement - equipment may be designed to certain specs that seemingly similar, but much cheaper, parts don't meet and using them may result in unexpected or catastrophic results. I could buy 10 cent bolts and nuts, or various lubricants, at Lowes that look just like the ones used on our reactor, but there is no assurance they would work properly, unlike the much more expensive ones in the supply system.
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, a lot of stuff sold to consumers is actually better than "mil spec". Disclosure: I used to work for a major aerospace and defense contractor.
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem.
The box of screws at your local Home Depot is targeted at some spec [say, attach block of wood 1 to block of wood 2, of various types, with certain minimum/maximum dimensions]
The majority of screws in that box meet or exceed that spec. But it is unlikely that all of them do, and it is unlikely that the few screws that don't meet the spec will be used in a situation where someones life is at stake.
Mil Spec may be lower, but all the screws in that box better meet that spec, because the whole system is designed to need that spec, and lives will directly depend on that screw meeting that spec, and if that screw fails, the military will sort through their records, find the QA person on the line that approved that screw, beat them to a pulp, then order twice as much of the same from that company.
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It's not so much that milspec stuff is better, it's that the extensive testing is supposed to ensure a level of quality to a high level of confidence.
Sure, the regular civilian stuff might be superior in nearly all situations, but you don't want to be finding the one situation where it is not while on the battlefield with people trying to kill you. Sure, the odds of finding that situation at all might be smal, but knowing the odds, which those test seek to ensure, is a huge help in managing the risks.
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It's not just the certification process as others have mentioned. In the military there's a persistent need to keep people busy. Therefore, parts and supplies must be provided to spec on an immediate basis. You're replacing brake shoes at 3000 miles, belts at 5000, batteries at 10000 miles. It's just the way they work.
Granted this article is talking about the Dept. of the Interior but procurement is procurement. At least don't get $500 hammers and $300 toilet seats so often anymore.
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To summarize this and several similar posts:
Mil spec is not at all about quality. It is all about reliability.
Sometimes there is a trade off between quality and reliability.
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If it was just a competitive bidding process then someone would step in and buy the stuff at market price and let the government bid on it at a bit over market price and take the profit.
The real issue is that the government (and certain high-risk industries) insist on a lot of tracability and QC that most customers don't. That means extra work for the manufacturers and they rightly charge for it. Sometimes this is really nessacery but afaict it is often done just to cover arses.
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Perhaps. However in this case, I believe they felt burned by Lotus ...
If you're getting burned by your Lotus, maybe you should let the exhaust manifest cool off before touching it.
Not a good sign... (Score:2)
Re:Not a good sign... (Score:4, Insightful)
When a company has to litigate to get customers/compete, it's not a good sign.
On the other hand, when the government simply decides to go with an existing vendor without considering other options, it's also not a good sign. After all, we don't want government wasting money on inferior solutions, do we?
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I'm sure Slashdot is the most objective place to determine which solution is the inferior one.
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I'm sure Slashdot is the most objective place to determine which solution is the inferior one.
When did I suggest that slashdot was the appropriate venue to make such decisions? All I said was that options should be evaluated.
Re:Not a good sign... (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially when that existing vendor is a serial felon all over the world.
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So competitive bidding is a bad thing and we should just let whatever appointed drone with the authority over an agency choose to spend a few tens of millions because of a pretty sales pitch?
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I don't think you've got the AC's argument quite right. He seems to be saying "Putting contracts out to tender is hard and expensive so contracts should be awarded as those seeking the goods or services see fit, regardless of anything else."
First of all, I have no idea where the claim putting any contract to tender should be that expensive. Someone is going to have to determine the requirements of the contract before they even consider looking for a contractor, and the tendering process is simply publishi
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When the merits of their offering are denied just because its "not Microsoft", then there is a problem, and its not with Google.
You can try to bitch and moan about taxpayer waste all you want, but at the end of the day, Google is still entitled to a fair shake. If they feel they aren't receiving that, then their only remedy is to go to the courts.
Re:Not a good sign... (Score:5, Insightful)
You really think the Department of the Interior manager who made this purchasing decision is an IT person?
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When the spec itself calls for a specific vendor's product, then its not a spec, and its not giving anyone else a fair shake.
Re:Not a good sign... (Score:5, Informative)
I have no idea what your objection means. The whole point of requiring a tendering process by government departments is to prevent abuses like politicians and/or bureaucrats giving their buddies lucrative contracts. Heck, I don't even directly work for the government, but am employed by a government contractor to run certain programs, and when purchasing equipment for those programs I'm required to get three separate quotes, and if I don't go with the cheapest one, I have to state why (ie. cheapest bid includes workstations with older CPUs, less RAM, insufficient OEM software, wrong edition of OS, etc.) It's a pain, but I understand the reasoning. Tax dollars are at play and I need to justify the expenditure.
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Pretty much anything in the US budget for less than about $15b isn't worth worrying about unless it's really easily pruned. And certainly anything under $1b isn't. We're going bankrupt on the huge expenditures for no gain, such as the DoD ridiculously
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Why should someone who has have to give it up for someone who hasn't?
Because the are disproportionately benefiting from those taxes?
A substantial percentage of US government aid in the last decade went to people with a net worth of over 50 million dollars.
A decent percentage of Military spending is spent to reward the contributors to Congressional campaigns, which makes that spending essentially Communism for the rich.
(Why do you think Lockheed Martin donates to Nancy Pelosi?)
The average Republican gets more financial aid from the US Government than they pay in taxes, the av
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"The average Republican gets more financial aid from the US Government than they pay in taxes, the average Democrat gets less in financial aid from the US Government than they pay in taxes."
I really, really need a cite for these assertions. Do the figures include benefits/service to illegal immigrants? Do they include people who pay NO taxes? I'm not saying your assertions aren't true; just that I need to see the source before I unquestioningly accept them.
- AJ
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A lot of financial aid that is allegedly for the poor actually only benefits the rich. Take food stamps, for example -- they allow an employer to pay his employees less than they can live on. Without food stamps they'd never take the job in the first place, and the employer would have to offer a higher wage.
Or an even worse one, section eight housing. An apartment that might net $200/mo on the open market is rented to a poor person for $150, the landlord gets that plus another $250 from the government, driv
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The purpose of a tender is to find a solution to a problem, not to minimise outlay.
Wouldn't a more rational approach be to sort the bids by their ability to satisfy the terms of the tender, without reference to price?
Once this order is established the prices could be assessed. If the price of the vendor that best meets the requirements is considered excessive *then* one would have to justify picking a cheaper but less satisfactory vendor.
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If the lowest bid is adequate then you take it and everyone is happy. If not then you explain why. If you fail, your accountability is directly proportionate to how connected you are and has nothing to do with any of the paperwork anyway. Seems like a working, defective system to me. I don't think your proposal would actually fix anything, though.
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No, I don't believe that for a second. But effectively having no tendering system guarantees abuses.
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Even if they usually make good decisions, one has to allow for the possibility that that is not always the case. Google does not feel that it is, and the judge believes they have enough of a case to bring it to trial and to enjoin the Department of the Interior until that is complete.
Maybe they're wrong. Maybe it is from an abundance of caution. But really, if the process is valuable at all then people need to be made aware that they will be asked to account for it and for their decisions. Absent that
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I've never worked in government, but I've found that writing the requirements specs is the hardest and most time consuming part of putting together an RFP, but until the requirements are known and documented, IT can't make an informed decision.
So by the time you document the requirements enough to make a good purchase recommendation, you may as well do a full RFP, and you may find out something new in the process.
In a recent procurement, IT's favorite choice (leader in the industry and some in IT had experi
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They don't need to litlgate, they need to learn to play the game. That means kickbacks.
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Once you've made up your mind... (Score:3)
For medium skill sets, I've had the interesting experience of recently hiring a new secretary to do some work here, and set her up with (of course) a linux box, OO, all that. Taught her how to use even a PCB layout software in a couple days, amazing. But what really kicked my butt, was after a day or two, she comes up with "I like this, what version of windows is it, I've never seen anything work so smoothly before".
Yeah, big learning curve. Now, she's smart, to be sure. Shouldn't everyone commanding a really good paycheck be? If you're too dumb to move from one thing to another, why can't 5 of you be replaced by one smart person. As a small businessman, I think like that, because if I don't make money, none of us eat - I don't have the bernake's printing presses, you know. But in the long run, neither will they, you can only take that game so far. Gotta dump these folks who think they are entitled to getting paid for not having to think and learn. Hiring is tough right now. It's not that you don't get applications (gawd, you get buried). It's that no on worth hiring applies, and it just costs money to sort all the junk CVs and figure out why this or that loser got laid off their last job -- because as a business owner (and we all know this) -- your business is your people, you take care of the best or you fail. If you are forced to cut, you never cut the good people.....
If that offends some currently out of jobs, I'm sorry, but not that sorry. Too many of you have shown up here looking for work, and turning out to know only a tiny fraction of what they claimed, and when tried, unable to do as they claim, and/or do it so slowly I may as well do it myself. You may think you're entitled, but no, you just got a good ride for awhile -- doesn't mean you deserve it in return for nothing out of you forever, the times don't permit that for any business that's going to STAY in business.
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Posting AC so I don't loose my job. Don't worry, this isn't flaming.
I find it troubling that you have more or less painted everyone who is unemployed with such a broad brush, that all of the unemployed here are low-skilled tech workers. The fact is, one out of ten -- and closer to one out of eight -- people who are capable of working are unemployed through no fault of their own. You may contend that with leaner times, the 'fat' is being trimmed and therefore they are, in fact, unemployed through their ow
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Posting AC so I don't loose my job. Don't worry, this isn't flaming.
Do you work at such a broken company?
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Taught her how to use even a PCB layout software in a couple days, amazing.
Which PCB layout package was it, if you don't mind me asking?
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Oh Whaaaa. Haven't you just invented justification for maintaining a sense of superiority? Business is hard. Life is hard. Get over it, or get out of business. Sounds like you are failing to hire people who believe it's their job to make your life easier. But that isn't their fault, that is yours. You're the boss, the owner. Buck stops with you. Blaming others and their perceived failings doesn't mean it's reality.
You have an opinion, and a world-view. Just like everyone else - including "these folks who t
Thats no cloud (Score:2, Insightful)
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If is done by Microsoft, is probably vapor or smoke (and mirrors).
Are you saying that a company that has specialized in vapor for decades would know nothing about a cloud?
Hmmm... ironically, I guess that's true. ;-)
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The joke's much older than that, it goes back to making fun of Lucas electrical equipment in British cars at least.
Google picks an easy target (Score:2)
Taking the prejustice out of the case, I personally don't think it's fair to penalize agency for being complied to bidding requirements. However, may be it's the only way to stop Department of Inter
US Dept of State uses sharepoint (Score:3)
I once helped someone over at the US Dept of State to build the beginnings of a page memorializing the late Ambassador Holbrooke. The HTML rendered fine in all browsers including MSIE6 until it was uploaded to sharepoint. I don't know much about sharepoint except that it breaks HTML even worse than MSIE6 by itself. The way I see it, the fact that nearly all of the US government depends exclusively on MS products needs to be enjoined. Not only is the government breaking its own rules the majority of the time by doing so, it is knowingly employing security risk.
(disclaimer: I know, when "done right" Microsoft stuff can be more secure than it typically is, but seriously? That's like saying "when prepared right beans and cabbage don't make you fart.")
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This is never a good way to start a relationship with a client.
Unless, based on the prev experience, other customers would be less inclined to ignore them. It's not like the laws allow the govt to be "pissed off for personal reasons"... or is it?
Re:Suing prospective clients? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not always true. I used to be in the instrumentation business, and in Europe, all deals for equipment sold to government facilities and universites had to go through a bid process. It is very common that the losing party in the bid automatically appealed the selection, and that dragged the actual procurement process usually for 3 - 6 months. It was frustrating, but it was how to do business, so we dealt with it.
At least in Europe, it didn't strain relationships, as it was expected.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suing prospective clients? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, if they list the reasons for not choosing Google, and Google fixes those, then it is very difficult to list new reasons when rejecting them on another bid, or when this contact comes up for re-evaluation.
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For all we know, Google may have been able to offer a complete solution to replace all those systems - include training and migration costs - at a lower price than the MS solution.
Re:Suing prospective clients? (Score:5, Informative)
And lets be honest folks: There is probably a damned good reason why they were looking at MS products only, and it was most likely because they have an assload of MS Stuff that would cost a mint to convert. I mean if they require Exchange and Sharepoint, they have a metric ton of VBA stuff being used, and Windows desktops everywhere, why in the hell should they be forced to accept bids that won't work? If Google wanted to submit bids on MS products as a VAR that is one thing, but Google docs ain't no MS Word.
It would be like forcing a design house to accept bids from some guy who wanted to rip out all their Macs and replace it with Ubuntu desktops running the Gimp. Does ANYBODY think that is a useful bid? Would they ever in a million years give up all that experience and custom in house code written for Photoshop just to use the Gimp? of course not.
By the same token I bet if we walked into the DOI tomorrow and did an audit on what they are running you'd find a bazillion Windows desktops, with tons of VBA macros, everything controlled by Active directory, with Exchange and Sharepoint. What good will come of having to waste tax dollars on a bid for a solution that won't actually solve anything? Is Google gonna pay to rewrite all that code for free? Are they gonna spring for the cost of retraining everyone out of the goodness of their hearts? No in the end they'll make the DOI jump through hoops before they finally hand them a list that says "These are the MS products we require, because all our stuff is tied into that and we will NOT pay for a complete overhaul!" and then Google will say "Uhhh...sorry we don't sell MS Products" and the money will have been blown for exactly jack and squat. If the DOI had said only MSFT was allowed to bid that would be one thing, but this is just stupid. It is trying to force a product that the customer does not want because they don't want a competitor to sell them a product they DO want. And in the end it is just that more added to the debt for absolutely nothing gained.
Pitiful actions and bad form Google, and from someone that has as much marketshare as you do it just comes off as looking petty and vengeful.
You clearly don't work in procurement.
The point of "considering a bid" is to establish all of those things you just said; a company can't be considered to just intrinsically know a bid from Google won't be any good, they need to actually see the bid so they can establish the facts.
A bid consists of a all sorts of things- firstly the price, but also consideration of the complete package, including costs to make everything compatible, converting archives, staff capacities for implementation, etc. If Google could offer to do absolutely everything required to make their solution work for considerably less than MS could offer the same (even if this entailed far less work for the MS engineers) then Google should win it. If they can't, they shouldn't.
That's the whole point of a fair tendering system. Ignoring that process is wrong, and a state agency deserves to be called out on it.
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Vendor lock in [wikipedia.org] is really a reason to re-evaluate your IT, not bury your head in the sand and keep cutting checks. If you wake up one day and realize that you absolutely can not switch despite the existence of competitors you have a problem. Open standards and open source software keep the vendor honest.
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Why can't they list these as a requirement? If the customer already has a significant investment in these products, requiring new contracts to use existing technology, infrastructure, etc... is reasonable. Those responding to the proposal can certainly recommend alternatives but they'll need to justify the additional cost of migrating.
As an example, I'm working on a project that is using a fairly old
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Because they aren't requirements, they are means to meet a requirement. The cost of replacement/integration should be considered, but there's never a reason to ignore options "because change is hard" unless "hard" has some monetary value and you accept and consider all bids and then reject them for that cost.
The issue here is that bids were accepted based on maker of the product, not features of that or any other product. If someone else came up with something
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That the spreadsheet is most commonly used as a database (and not for numerical calculations) should be an indication that all is not right in IT Userland.
If you don't know how to use a screwdriver you're going to hammer the screws in.
My mom used to use Lotus 123 as a word processor! If all you need is a small flat file and don't know any databases, a spreadsheet will serve the purpose. The problem comes when your table becomes too unwieldy, or has dependancies with other tables.
I inhereted a project like t
Standards please (Score:2)
This is why no one is his right mind should go with MS products to begin with. They are a trap. /. should be well aware of this by now. At some point even the government will have to ween itself of this MS addiction, and yes, bad decisions from previous years will cost money today.
This is why standards are important. When you need to spend big lump of $ on products you should get to choose vendors. Anybody who posts to
It would be like forcing a design house to accept bids from some guy who wanted to rip out all their Macs and replace it with Ubuntu desktops running the Gimp... Would they ever in a million years give up all that experience and custom in house code written for Photoshop
Bad analogy. Most applications in govt (and elsewhere) are now network/server based,
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As I recall, the reason they were only considering MS products was because the spec says "Use MS products".
The spec SHOULD detail all the requirements, and products that meet them should be considered. The system of bidding is supposed to reduce the cost to the public by introducing competition, but clearly if part of your spec can state "MUST use the product of this particular supplier" then there is no hope of competition in the first place, which defeats the purpose of having a bidding process.
If you can
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True, they may have brought up the injunction cause they wanted the money, any company would.
BUT the point is they won, thus the Dept did not consider options (or enough consideration) for other companys' services.
Maybe if this was like the 4th appeal, I'd say Google is being an ass, but winning the first round means they were in the right and doing as any company who offer similar services that were not taken into enough consideration, would do.
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They did drop the ball, I don't want my hard earned dollars being spent on crap.
Re:I already see the /. comments.. (Score:5, Informative)
..and find it amusing that people are making cracks about how the govt dropped the ball, instead of the obvious fact that the govt. chose MS after considering options and google is just jilted. Because that would be evil.
And I find it amusing that you spout off random nonsense, which happens to be the exact opposite of the article, Google's initial complaint, and what the court found, which was that the government did NOT provide proper justification or approvals, or considered any alternatives.
Let me quote the relevant part for you to save you from having to read the article (which you obviously (a) did not and/or (b) are simply trolling):
Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims wrote, in an order made public late Tuesday, that a July determination by an assistant secretary naming Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal (BPOS) as the agency's standard for messaging and collaboration did not include "proper justification or appropriate approvals."
and...
The agency's determination that BPOS was its standard included "no estimate of internal agency cost" of other options, Braden wrote. The determination also failed to list any potential alternatives, including Google's attempts to sell the agency on its products, she (the judge) wrote.
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But the government _did_ drop the ball. Not by picking Microsoft, but by not following the proper procedures in feigning whatever 'consider other options' requirements there were. If they haven't even bothered making up reasons why Microsoft won and Google didn't, then they have dropped the ball.
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"Look at me, I'm insightful b/c I don't subscribe to the status quo!"
Corporate collusion with the government. . .why don't you Google, oops, I'm sorry, Bing! "OOXML" Yeah, it's not a tin-foil hat theory.
This cynical, apathetic attitude of yours seems to imply that all corporations are evil at some point, so why does it matter? I'll tell you why it matters: b/c one corporation has a corporate culture of corruption whereas the other has a corporate motto to do no evil. The average Slashdot user doesn't hate M
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When the spec specifically said the only solution being considered was MS Office, then no, Google did not get a fair shot.
Does kinda sound like it (Score:3)
I mean I can see once reason why this was a pretty much no-bid situation: BPOS is Microsoft Exchange. Well if that is what you want, BPOS is basically the only cloud solution to get it. Yes, Google offers similar products in terms of offering online e-mail and calendaring and so on. However they are NOT the same. If what you desire is an Exchange backend for Outlook, and that is what some organizations desire, then you only have one option. This is particularly true if what you use Blackberries (and the gov
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So, the Department of the Interior chose the product that doesn't meet one of their basic requirements without even considering the product that does.
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There is some argument over whether or not Google can provide what the agency needs in terms of security, but I don't think that the agency will be allowed to dismiss Google outright witho
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Could you clarify your statement? I think I understand your point but I didn't really see any cheating by Unisys much less Google (who last I checked does not own Unisys). All I saw was a government agency, likely under pressure, loosening the rules to focus on the more import aspect (information security). Information location may be relevant to the decision but if Unisys is able to provide a better secured product cheaper regardless of location not only was there no cheating the changes improved the en