Google Sues US Gov't For Only Considering Microsoft 407
An anonymous reader writes "Late last week, Google sued the US government for putting out a Request For Quotation for the messaging needs of the Department of the Interior that specified only Microsoft solutions would be considered. Google apparently had spent plenty of time talking to DOI officials to understand their needs and make sure they had a solution ready to go — and were promised that there wasn't a deal already in place with Microsoft. And then the RFQ came out. Google protested, but the protest was dismissed, with the claim that Google was 'not an interested party.'"
Smart Move? (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly though, even if they did can they really think that suing the gov't over some minor app is going to win tons of dollars and contracts? Every spec can be written in the future in such a way to exclude a companies abilities ad infinitum.
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No kidding. If your goal is to pick Office over Google Docs, you can list about a thousand things Office does that GD doesn't.
Probably an easy 90% of those are features the government doesn't even care about, but certainly they can still demand them.
Reading the links, it really seems like the person at Google in charge of this didn't have a lot of experience with the realities of government contract bidding.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Interesting)
Government contract work is INSANE. One of my wife's relatives works in the field (writing up contracts between the US government and other companies), and based on the little I've talked to him about it, it sounds crazy complicated. I'd rather learn about the tax code instead of government contracts.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Informative)
People who write these kinds of things are well aware of what they can and can't do or say and still have no problems in making sure that their preferred supplier wins the contract without breaching the letter of the law. The spirit of the law, on the other hand, was declared dead a long time ago.
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Um, what if you need your part to be precisely 5 meters +/- 0.0005 m?
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Welcome to the government, my friend.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual machinist/toolmaker here:
"Ordinary machining techniques are good down to 0.1%"
*a dark cloud appears above my head* I'll try to bite my lip and be civil about this. .1% for a 25.4mm part is .0254mm, (1 inch, and .001 inch respectively, for SAE). Charles Babbage was able to meet that tolerance with the tools of the time - the builders of the modern Difference Engine empirically found they could indeed do so. When the Difference Engine was built using his old plans, they decided to take on the argument that Babbage couldn't possibly build his Difference Engine due to lack of technology. They found that argument to be bogus. Depending on what you're doing, that kind of tolerance these days may as well be plus or minus a mile, especially if you're sending something to be ground. With superfinishing (Supfina Inc., North Kingstown RI (my childhood hometown)) you're looking at microns or smaller.
Affordable glass scales and ballscrew retrofits have even made manual machining a lot more accurate. Drill 2 holes 500mm apart plus or minus .02 mm? All I've got is a rebuilt Bridgeport with glass scales? I've got AC that doesn't blow directly on the machine tool and shrink one side of it? NO PROBLEM.
Am I insulted? Yeah, a little bit. Bring coffee into the shop next time. Thanks.
--
BMO
l Postscript: Yesterday's thread about math made me angry, but since it was mobbed I didn't bother contributing. But I have to say this, yeah sure a lot of people go through their lives with just arithmetic, percentages, and a rough idea of area and volume. But if you want to build anything *interesting,* you'd better have paid attention to your geometry, trig, and calc teachers. Yeah, sure, computers do a lot of the bull-work calculation, but it's a good idea to have a good idea.
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Fortunately for everyone working in all shops and labs everywhere, STP, standard temperature and pressure, is room temperature and the sea level air pressure of a sunny day. Heat/cool the shop to 20C or 68F and you won't have any problems. A couple of degrees either way doesn't make much difference unless you get into really large pieces. And any small shop worth its salt will have an inspection room that is climate controlled to plus or minus a degree. If you do have a problem with the climate control,
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I was just having difficulty wrapping my head around how to finish a 5-meter-long dimension to half a millimeter. Even finding a reference length to compare against would be difficult. I was just having difficulty wrapping my head around how to finish a 5-meter-long dimension to half a millimeter.
It's not difficult if you have the right measuring equipment. Nikon has a laser measurer that does very large volumes (aircraft sized) and is pretty darn accurate over large distances. It's expensive, but if the
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Funny)
It's pathetic to behold, and a wonder we still have a nation at all.
Actually a major portion of the Earth was destroyed some time ago and you've all been plugged into simulations coming from the international space station and the moon. You're not actually awake, but are plugged into an interface. Due to a writers' strike and shortages of tantalum and thorium, you may vanish from the simulation at any time. My condolences.
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you can list about a thousand things Office does that GD doesn't.
They did list things:
The DOI justified limiting its offerings to Microsoft, by saying that Microsoft had two things that other solution providers did not: unified/consolidated email and "enhanced security."
And Google responded to those:
Google disputes this (not surprisingly) and notes various problems with Microsoft solutions -- including well reported downtime issues.
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unified/consolidated email
Lots of ways to do that
enhanced security."
This clearly indicates bribery, no one hears "Microsoft" and thinks enhanced security.
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Got it in one. The explicit requiring of Microsoft's products pretty much goes beyond the typical stretching of the rules and stacking of the deck- in a way, I'm pretty sure of, they're not supposed to do in the first place.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Interesting)
You would be correct in that assumption. The very existence of AMD in its present *Intel Competitor* form was born of the requirement of the government to be able to select among at least two providers. At the moment, there isn't a *Windows competitor" in the sense that it is compatible... there was, but OS/2 was killed through underhanded bundling deals and the like.
It is beyond time that the government is called to task on the way it follows its own rules.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Informative)
Does Google's professional mail solution support S/MIME? Gmail doesn't, and it's a gaping hole in their messaging offering when compared to pretty much any popular messaging application on the market.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Google's professional mail solution support S/MIME? Gmail doesn't, and it's a gaping hole in their messaging offering when compared to pretty much any popular messaging application on the market.
Disclaimer: I work for USGS/DOI.
Yes, that amongst other things. One big aspect of any federal government purchase is the requirement of encryption, and not just any encryption, but FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption systems. As far as I know, Gmail does not support that, while Exchange does.
What's more, about 1/2 the DOI has an MS Exchange-based email system, while the other have (at least the few bureaus that I know of) use a Lotus Notes-based system. So, the idea with this transition is to merge into one solution with the assumption it will be cheaper. (Will it be cheaper? Who knows...)
From what I understand, the Networx transition in DOI underwent a similar problem where the contract was awarded to the incumbent (Verizon) and this resulted in protests.
Overall I like FIPS 140-2 because it means I'm less likely to be sold a snake-oil security product, although it drives up costs inordinately. One example: I just purchased 5 2GB USB drives, for $250. The FIPS compliant price $50/unit where an off-the-shelf USB drive costs ~$8.
All things told, I would love to have a Gmail solution, but until they get FIPS 140-2 compliance, I'm stuck with MS Exchange...sad though it may be.
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Some snake oil still gets through....
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/fips_140-2_leve.html [schneier.com]
I'm curious about the USB drives.
Are there no software encryption systems which are FIPS compliant?
or is this a case of requiring hardware which forces the user to encrypt properly rather than merely allowing them to encrypt properly.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are waiting for gmail to support any sort of encryption, don't hold your breath. Google has a very vested interest in being able to scan and catalog every single piece of mail that flows through their system. Never forget why gmail was created. Google doesn't do it to be a good netizen. In the end it's all about money, and having email traffic that they cannot read doesn't make them any.
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The issue that Google has wasn't about any particular feature that is required. I'm pretty sure that FIPS 140-2 (if it was a requirement) would be implemented for any Google product if at all possible. Main issue is the requirement to use Microsoft BPOS-Federal product as the basis of the service.
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The only thing that FIPS 140-2 implies is that someone in marketing figured out that by using the correct algorithms, they can sell crap products to the government. Congratulations - you just screwed the public for $210 for a flash drive that is no more secure than commercial grade sticks and a copy of TrueCrypt (which uses FIPS 140-2 compliant algorithms, no less)
But hey, why should you care? Enjoy your job security.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Informative)
There are various client-side plugins which support S/MIME for Gmail (which is actually the right place to do it). See Gmail S/MIME [mozilla.org] and other similar plugins.
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What "well reported downtime issues?"
My Exchange boxes haven't had any significant downtime (outside of scheduled maintenance windows) in the last six years--and that includes the time we migrated all the users into a new forest! Granted, this started as a very small domain of only ~100 users, but for the last 18 months (as a result of the above mentioned forest move) we've
Eheh (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, your approach would be to let your direct competitor AND arch enemy get away with their corruption and greed and walk all over you for fear that they might walk all over you again with their corruption and greed.
Your message: Don't fight the status quo because if you don't things will remain the same...
Really, grow a spine, it is all the rage these days.
Asking for a MS only solution in an open bid is NOT an open bid. If I make an open bid for cars as long as they are made by ford, then it is not open. And governments should NOT do this kind of job unless they want the outraged citizens to march to the capitol and... oooh Idols is on.
Re:Eheh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an open bid as in, anyone can offer a solution, it just must be Exchange based.
Re:Eheh (Score:4, Insightful)
To take his car analogy to the next level... it's like the government putting out a req. for cars using only Ford Engines.
Re:Eheh (Score:4, Insightful)
While you see evil conspiracy here, it's like putting out a bid requiring cars with only Ford Engines, because all your mechanics are Ford Mechanics and you don't want to hire GM Mechanics simply for one set of cars. My guess is they are primarily a Windows shop so by going with Exchange, they don't need to hire new "mechanics".
Re:Eheh (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering this is hosted mail, they have no "mechanics" for it.
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Heh... Classic bad (very bad...) car analogy...must be Slashdot I'm reading...
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What are your other options? Lotus Notes which is worse then Exchange, Groupwise which require a Novell environment I doubt they have and Google Apps which may not work in their environment.
Re:Eheh (Score:5, Informative)
You left out a lot:
Zimbra
Zafara
OpenXchange(that one I know sucks)
Scalix
the list goes on and on.
Re:Eheh (Score:4, Interesting)
Google Apps may not work in their environment? So, they don't have web browsers?
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I was very surprised, though, to see that once they started using it, some of the people who had been the most doubtful, became the biggest advocates of the Gmail way. It's dramatic enough that if we wanted to go back to Exchange or Outlook or Entourage, there would be blood, and the execs, not IT, would be the ones protesting the loudest.
Once you do an honest cost/benefit analysis of (paid-for, corporate) Google mail, it's not a hard sell at all. The problem, if it is one, is persuading decision makers t
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Yes, I mentioned the removal of the "Labels" button. Only the "Move" button would remain. So here is the short list of changes that a billion-dollar company like Google would have to do:
Did I forget anything? As I said, these few simple changes should be enough to convert Gmail's virtual folders into "real" folders (or as real as they ever get; not like the .pst datab
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That just means that you're not using enough of it. ~
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Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Informative)
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There's also a requirement to have a PRODUCT that could be put into the Schedule to begin with. I'm pretty sure they've got a DUNS number at the least (Most major corps typically have one.) and the rest is easy.
Don't seize on what the GSA did for a reason for refusal here. I'm strongly suspecting that they were finding out what they needed to do to possibly get the business before they went and did the rest- because they'd have had to.
No, there's an issue there. It's called an EXPLICITLY CLOSED contract
Re:Smart Move? (Score:4, Funny)
It's one of those bureaucratic loopholes. Without the GSA schedule and number, you can be dismissed from any offering regardless of how much time you put in. Did they really not have one? Almost seems like a bad oversight.
If they had been using their "magic wifi gathering devices" they surely could have picked one up somewhere.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Informative)
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Google Docs is horrendous. Vanilla plain features, horrible display and formatting, poorly thought out UI... Google needs to invest some time and innovation into Google Docs, it really makes them look bad.
That's as may be ... but here's the question: is it close enough for government work?
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Google Docs is horrendous. Vanilla plain features, horrible display and formatting, poorly thought out UI... Google needs to invest some time and innovation into Google Docs, it really makes them look bad.
Mod parent up, exponentially. I'm so sick of hearing on Slashdot how great Google Apps/Docs and Gmail is. I can only imagine that the people who think Google Apps is a suitable office suite for business use must have been using vi or notepad.exe all their lives. Google Apps is great for a goofy little spreadsheet with minimal functionality or writing a letter to Aunt Sally, but it's incredibly painful to run a real business on it. Gmail is fine for personal email, but it doesn't come close to Exchange a
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No. It’s the government. The RFQ and bids all have to be made open to whomever wants to see them.
Re:Smart Move? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't particularly like Google as a company.
Compared to Microsoft!
How is this any different (Score:2)
How is this any different than granting no-bid contracts granted to companies for rebuilding infrastructure or working the oil fields in Iraq? Isn't a no-bid contract the same thing as saying they are considering a single company?
Re:How is this any different (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How is this any different (Score:4, Informative)
They aren’t restricting the bidding to only Microsoft... third-party contractors could bid on it as long as they were going to use Microsoft’s products.
Basically, they’re trying to avoid taking the low bid and then at the end of the contract finding out that all of the workstations are running some free flavour of Linux that isn’t supported and none of their employees know how to use. It’s reasonable from that perspective, although cutting Google out of the mix probably still wasn’t really the smartest move.
Re:How is this any different (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is this any different (Score:4, Insightful)
Which certainly isn't considering all options. A Microsoft only option leaves out a huge portion of the market that might be able to come up with a cost savings and a more secure solution using a free software infrastructure. How is it good for the economy and the U.S. as a nation sticking with a single vendor?
I accidentally the whole point (Score:2)
Isn't that illegal? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Isn't that illegal? (Score:5, Funny)
This is what happens when you have a monopoly like the Department of the Interior. I think it's about time one of us started a department to compete with them and keep them honest.
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Re:Isn't that illegal? (Score:5, Informative)
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That again depends on how many machines you have, it may be more cost effective to switch everything over to AMD $hypothetical_CPU. Not accepting bids that fulfill the requirements, which would be too increase the capacity of your VMware environment, would be foolish.
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it may be more cost effective to switch everything over to AMD $hypothetical_CPU
That’s not how governments operate, though. You can’t roll a decision like that into an unrelated contract. You have to hire an expensive consultant and pay millions of dollars to even consider switching everything over to AMD $hypothetical_CPU, and at that point it’s hardly cost-effective any more.
I say that with my tongue only halfway in cheek.
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And how much does the price vary on an Xbox?
That's right, basically no difference at all as they are all selling the same fucking thing coming from only one company.
Yes, the Dept. of Interior is corrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks to years of being "open for business"... probably not starting with, but vastly increasing during the Bush W Administration (and not being brought back under control with Obama admin), the Department of the Interior has been almost thoroughly corrupted and captured [hcn.org].
It's not surprising that they are the target of lawsuit... what's sad is that they aren't sued by regular citizens for abdication of their purpose in search of bribes and kickbacks from Industry.
I wish Google best of luck in turning the stone on this cockroach-infested den of iniquity.
Re:Yes, the Dept. of Interior is corrupt (Score:5, Informative)
They were corrupt under Reagan, Bush and Clinton too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobell_v._Kempthorne [wikipedia.org] for one.
Re:Yes, the Dept. of Interior is corrupt (Score:5, Insightful)
All bureaucracies are inherently corrupt, which is why you need regular change. A bureaucrat's first and primary goal is to keep their job and benefits. There is no requirement or reward to be efficient, effective, considerate or frugal. After all, it isn't their money they are spending.
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All bureaucracies are inherently corrupt, which is why you need regular change. A bureaucrat's first and primary goal is to keep their job and benefits. There is no requirement or reward to be efficient, effective, considerate or frugal. After all, it isn't their money they are spending.
All kinds of people enjoy waste and freewheeling. Government money is the largest source. But boss, compnay, NGO and even family money gets abused all the time too. There is really only one place for decency or lack thereof. In minds are hearts. And only one way to really reduce it from there, education. Prosecution makes people think twice sometimes, but doesn't really change who they are. Legislation and lawsuits and punishment just create even more social confusion, just visit some courts and lawsu
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All kinds of people enjoy waste and freewheeling. Government money is the largest source. But boss, compnay, NGO and even family money gets abused all the time too. There is really only one place for decency or lack thereof. In minds are hearts. And only one way to really reduce it from there, education. Prosecution makes people think twice sometimes, but doesn't really change who they are. Legislation and lawsuits and punishment just create even more social confusion, just visit some courts and lawsuits and you will see it offerts no real decency and solutions to society.
An article recently discussed on schneier's blog (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/control_fraud.html) argues otherwise... That under-deterrence creates an environment where corruption can become systemic and that regulatory frameworks need to be designed keeping in mind the possibility of fraud at the highest levels, and optimized to reduce it, rather than be designed based on economic models that wish corruption away as a market inefficiency that is somehow automagically eliminated by free ma
Re:Yes, the Dept. of Interior is corrupt (Score:4, Insightful)
And before that, they were tasked primarily with exploitation (rather than a mix of exploitation and protection) of resources, so there was really no question of any sort of bribery or corruption, unless you counted your Uncle Willy giving you preferential hiring as a park ranger because you were a good party member and his nephew. If you were an industry back then, you just signed a lease at the going price (which was even more ridiculously small than today's lease prices), and you got what was on/under the land.
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It's not surprising that they are the target of lawsuit... what's sad is that they aren't sued by regular citizens for abdication of their purpose in search of bribes and kickbacks from Industry.
I think a big part of the problem here is the very narrow definition of "standing". The United States court system currently does not hold that being a citizen is standing in itself regarding government activities. I can't point to specific cases regarding corruption, but two good cases to look at to frame the quest
Single Source vs. Open Source vs.... Microsoft? (Score:2, Informative)
It is pretty amusing, because I have repeatedly seen government (and corporate) IT talk about avoiding Macs because they are a Single Source Solution: you can't buy Macs from anyone but Apple, so you are locked into dealing with only one vendor. Then these same people would turn around and specify Microsoft Windows solutions. Precisely how many vendors do they think make Microsoft Windows?
If any of these people were honestly interested in avoiding vendor lock-in, they would require that all solutions be fre
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Actually, I can see some (albeit twisted) logic.
You can run Windows on any old hardware, and if Microsoft were to cease to exist tomorrow, you could continue to install Windows on new hardware. Sure, you'd have to look to migrate off Windows sooner or later but - and here is the big but - you wouldn't be essentially forced to before you start to see hardware failing around your ears. Not so OS X - if Apple were to cease to exist tomorrow, you'd find yourself stuck.
Less of an issue today now that Macs run
The Most Corrupt Department (Score:5, Interesting)
The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff [wikipedia.org], centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS [denverpost.com] office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.
"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.
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"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.
OT, but of course it has. You don't honestly think all those government mandarins who have spent decades empire building are going to give it all up and change their MO altogether just because someone else is warming the seat in the oval office?
FFI, watch "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister".
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Hmm. Well, at least there was competition, wasn't there? I mean, surely somewhere an RFP was issued for that.
Re:The Most Corrupt Department (Score:4, Interesting)
All of Utah's territory was taken from the nations who lived there before, largely by the Federal government. So Utahans' claim to the land isn't really compelling.
Besides, that Federal land is given to Utah corporations for free or cheap ranching and mining/drilling, without paying taxes on owning it.
Corrupt is in the eye of the one paying the bill. Since I pay for Utah to get back 7% more than it pays [taxfoundation.org] (and as much as 45% more, in 1987) from Federal spending in the state, as my state loses 21% net, I can see where the real corruption lands.
Video of how it works (Score:5, Informative)
I couldn't visualize it from the description, but this video shows how it works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UesbkO3NvoY [youtube.com]
Pretty crazy. It'll come down to whether they can actually make something like that reliable.
Re:Video of how it works (Score:5, Funny)
Sonofabitchwrongarticlesorryguys.
Vendors (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of discussion on "How come only Microsoft".
While I agree it's not "competitive", I think they are looking for bids on hosting a Microsoft based solution - not Microsoft, the company, providing the hosting
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I don't think that really makes it much better. Either way, they're favoring a specific company rather than requesting specific functionality.
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In this case, both are the same thing. Unless Google Docs is an Exchange-based solution. A high level of interoperability with a million existing government systems effectively mandates that.
Unless we've decided it's okay if the government is hopelessly inefficient, as long as they're wasting money on Google products?
Oh, the huge manatee... (Score:2)
I certainly have to laugh at the timing of this move. I pondered a moment how effective a call to my elected officials might be at midterm election time, then said to myself, "FUUUUUUUUUU...."
Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
Been there, done that. One of my former employers essentially bet the company on a federal RFP that was seeking POSIX compliance on diskless workstations. We worked our butts off to develop a solution using SCO Unix (back in the days before SCO decided to go into litigation as a business model), but even though it met all the requirements, the contract was awarded to the incumbent, who bid Windows NT -- with some kind of POSIX plug-in. We protested (the loser always protests), but we lost. Maybe it'll turn out better for a deep-pocketed company like Google.
How much money flows from Feds - Microsoft? (Score:2)
I am wondering if anyone knows just how much money the federal goverment sends to Microsoft each year.. There has got to be somewhere I can easily find this information. And while I am at, how about for any corporation?
I would love to see the Top 10 Fed supported companies.
Is try before you buy legally binding now? (Score:2)
There is less and less reason to believe in Google as a company. It doesn't seem like anything was signed.
Google was not an interested party
DOI forgot to s/interested/interesting/ to lessen the blow to Google. The government's fault was in creating rage and adding gas to that fire... I'd be angry too if an prospective employer pulled the same thing off in a job offer, daring to say I wasn't an interested party, though I went to their interview.
But just like my example, in most of the United States, a plaintiff with no signed agreement has
Did anyone actually read the complaint? (Score:5, Interesting)
Go Google (Score:2, Insightful)
This is probably the only lawsuit I read about on Slashdot that I am going to support. Well done Google. And DOI must be lacking some sense these days to call it RFQ when they specified they will only consider bids from one company.
Rampant ignorance on Google's part (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people have firm opinions that the government did something wrong here - show of hands please?
How many people know the differences between an RFQ, RFP, and an IFB? Why did so many hands go down?
Seriously, an RFQ is a tool to arrive at market price for a defined solution, and it is non-binding.
An RFP is a request for respondents to define a solution, the Gov't is open to various solutions.
And an IFB is an Invitation To Bid - this is where the Gov't picks a vendor for a defined solution based on price.
Every response i see here has these three different documents conflated... I suggest you look here for guidance:
http://www.onvia.com/b2g-resources/article/responding-to-an-ifb-rfp-rfq-do-you-know-the-difference [onvia.com]
RFP, RFQ and Public Aquisitions (Score:4, Informative)
You write up an RFP when you know your problem and you need a solution. Language often specifies a technology, but allows for equivalent substitutions. Protests often happen over debate of what qualifies as equivalent, but if the DOI was looking for a solution, they would write an RFP.
But they weren't looking for a solution, they were looking for a vendor, and already knew what solution they wanted. That's when you write an RFQ, specify exactly the technology you want and then let everyone submit pricing. The disadvantage is that you have to choose the low quotation. In an RFP, you do not have to take the low proposal, even in the public sector.
So it might feel wrong, but way before the RFQ was even written the DOI determined that they wanted the Microsoft solution and just wanted pricing. Google lost before it even started. Which is probably short sighted by the DOI, but well within the law. As a public sector person who deals with this, it's not easy to get what you know you need at a price you want. Most public entities aren't being corrupt, but like someone else mentioned, the spirit of the law has long been lost and both sides spend inordinate amounts of time and money just trying to game the system. Like the vendor who protested that his 7200rpm SATA drive SAN was equivalent to the 15k SAS version and that he won on price... ugh.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure that's not what "interested party" means legally in this context. But that being said...
Wasn't there an article on /. last week to the effect that they were now an Irish or whatever non-US country it was corporation for tax purposes?
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Nope.
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Google's a US corporation, so isn't it by definition an "interested party" in any transaction involving the US government?
I think the reasoning is that corporations own and control the US govt and/or have essentially been "merged". So, whom exactly is the interested party if you try to sue yourself?
Also everyone knows you pay money to politicians to get them to do what you want. Google apparently did not. So why is the govt to blame? I decided not to pay McDonalds for a hamburger. Oddly enough, I did not get a hamburger. Should I sue them? There is no interested party if there is no transaction.
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It seems like they were talking to Google and Microsoft before even putting out the request, which seems weird to me (Discussing the details of a product before the request is even out).
And then Google is upset that they weren't picked, and THEN the request was put out.
This boggles my mind, I don't get it. Is this like Momento where everything is actually going backwards?
Re:Why put out a request... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There are lots of ford dealerships. DOI should be looking for email/office/whatever with X requirements, not an email solution from X.
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Have you considered that many other solutions integrate with that environment just fine?
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Why can the DOI preselect one vendor?
If you are going to do that you may as well not even have bids.
This is like saying postal trucks will now be bid out, anyone who wants to bid must provide ford built vehicles.
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Any number of independent contractors can bid on the contract -- but their bid has to be a Microsoft-based solution. Probably for optimal compatability with any number of things outside the scope of this particular contract.
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It's not an RFQ if it states that only one party can fulfill the requirements. It's a public rubberstamp.
There are reasons the rules say you have to put things out to tender - to prevent corruption, to get the best value for public money. To subvert that process by putting out a tender that states that only one party will be considered is to openly laugh in the face of those reasons.
Of course Google was trying to push their system. This is how sales works. Microsoft was no doubt pushing just as hard, but th
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It's not an RFQ if it states that only one party can fulfill the requirements. It's a public rubberstamp.
It doesn’t. It just specifies that whoever builds the system needs to use Microsoft’s software. Microsoft is mainly in the business of selling software, not necessarily building complete systems... it’s quite possible that they’d price themselves out of the bidding for this and let some other contractor purchase their software licenses and actually do the hard work of building the system from the ground up.
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I am doing my part. Voting against Rick Scott (R) for Florida governor tomorrow. In what insane world can a guy that pleaded the 5th 75 times in relation to defrauding social security and insider trading be a viable candidate?
I am not a democrat, but OMG WTF BBQ!, I can't vote my preferred 3rd party candidate and risk him winning.