
Google sues feds over Microsoft-centric bidding requirement - lotusleaf1987
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/google-sues-feds-over-microsoft-centric-bidding-requirement.ars
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bradleyland
This type of thing isn't all that uncommon in municipal purchasing; the
Microsoft-centric spec or the lawsuit. Our startup does a lot of business with
city, county, and state governments in the purchasing space. I can't tell you
how many times we receive a spec that is written to fit a specific product
from a specific vendor. It's the latter part that gets them in trouble. Our
product relies on a competitive bidding environment with multiple qualified
vendors, so we do a lot of specification consulting. This usually means
working with managers to pound department heads over the skull with the
changes for a few days before they cave in and allow the changes. This happens
in the private sector as well, but no one can sue if they aren't allowed in
the bid, so the incentive isn't as strong.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for the government employees in these
situations. Imagine you have a staff full of people with a specific skill set
-- a bunch of MCSEs, for example -- yet the law says you must write your
specifications in such a way that any vendor can answer the RFP. What are you
supposed to do with your team? There is often, but not always, a change
management factor applied to bidders where significant changes are required,
but managers don't always accept these facts. They don't understand, for
example, why the guy who was trained to fix John Deer tractors can't readily
switch to servicing a fleet of Kubota tractors without taking technical
courses on the new product and changing out some tooling. These things cost
money that may not be made up by a short term savings on capital expenditure.
The problem is, "that's the next guy's problem".

I just hope that the result of this lawsuit is what's good for the US
Government, not just what's good for Google.

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forgottenpaswrd
"They don't understand, for example, why the guy who was trained to fix John
Deer tractors can't readily switch to servicing a fleet of Kubota tractors
without taking technical courses on the new product and changing out some
tooling. These things cost money that may not be made up by a short term
savings on capital expenditure."

They do understand, that is the reason for standards that you could enforce as
a mayor customer, if not on all your operations, in your primary ones. It cost
a lot of money to depend on just only one company that knows you can't change
to their competence(monopoly cost), too.

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bradleyland
Standards don't solve everything. There is always a change management
component, and nothing is free. To use the tractor example, Kubota may offer
to provide tooling and training for "free", but they're not eating the cost.
It's built in to their price. Say they still come in at a price lower than the
incumbent. There are still going to be unforeseen variables.

I'm not saying the incumbent should always win. Far from it. We've bult a
business on disrupting that exact scenario, but you'll find that your customer
relationships are short lived if you treat vendors as universally
interchangeable cogs. You have to listen carefully to the vendors and the
stakeholders inside the purchasing organization, and make sure you hold the
challenger accountable for their promises.

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nowarninglabel
Good, but I wish Google would have (and would continue to be) more serious
about 508 accessibility. The accessibility issue has cost them numerous state
contracts in California, though they did finally start producing VPATs this
past year. If I were the government here, may be able to make an argument that
Google hasn't fully vetted its products for 508 compliance, which is a
requirement for winning most federal software/web contracts.

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charlief
Related

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1857210>

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Tangurena
I work (part time) with the Dept of Interior. The reason for the Microsoft-
centric requirements is due to all of the lawsuits against DoI. As far as I
know, electronic "discovery" tools used by lawyers and law firms aren't
compatible with Google's cloud, but _are_ compatible with Microsoft's (and
Lotus Notes - _shudder_ ). Perhaps there will be a few products handling
Googles product in a year or 2.

The lawsuits against Interior have to do with Indian tribes being cheated out
of royalties going back, oh, a hundred years or more. One book where this
subject was touched upon (and gives an idea of the size of the discrepancies)
is Sinister Pig. [http://www.amazon.com/Sinister-Pig-Tony-
Hillerman/dp/0060194...](http://www.amazon.com/Sinister-Pig-Tony-
Hillerman/dp/006019443X) Pretty much any tribe with oil, gas, coal, uranium or
any other economically valuable mineral is involved in sueing Interior. This
means that just about every tribe is sueing Interior.

Employee orientation with Interior includes some explanation of these suits as
well as what needs to be preserved.

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VladRussian
"...just issue a spec that requires a hood ornament with three lines
trisecting a circle, and see whichever car company meets the spec at the best
price-- surprise!"

cited from here

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/c84bp/how_realwor...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/c84bp/how_realworld_corruption_works/)

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rbanffy
If you don't have a good enough reason to demand the ornament, you will still
have to explain why you needed it in court.

Here in Brazil I have seen a couple RFPs shot down because they were tailored
to a certain supplier (things like "nine internal bays for mass-storage
devices" or "PowerPC 401-based on-board RAID subsystem"). In one instance, the
guys with 10-bays and i960 CPUs on RAID cards were not happy and the poor sap
who was ordered to write the spec had the distinguished annoyance of both
explaining it to a judge and having to redo it, adding a year to the project.

I can't imagine you getting away with that.

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nightlifelover
Provide something better. I really mean it, there is no alternative which is
qualitatively equivalent to MS exchange. Same for the office. Google has their
cloud products, but I don't think that any government should have to store
their data on googles servers.

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djcapelis
The contract was for Microsoft's cloud products. Not locally hosted Exchange.

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Elepsis
The suite of products in question includes, among other things, remotely
hosted Exchange.

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beagle3
For which there are perfectly adequate alternatives that do not involve
Microsoft -- e.g. Google Apps.

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Elepsis
Anyone who thinks that Google Apps are a "perfectly adequate" alternative to
Exchange has never worked at a company of over 100 users with different needs
and desires.

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to_jon
Nice strategy. If a customer doesn't give your products fair consideration,
sue them. There's no doubt Google has a very strong cloud product, one that's
superior to Microsoft's in certain scenarios. But to start a lawsuit over this
seems kind of extreme. Not the strategy of a "don't be evil" company.

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Simucal
This isn't a private company looking to make a software purchase. This is the
United States Federal Government. As such, I would expect them to have to give
fair consideration to other vendors and their respective technologies rather
than defaulting to Microsoft.

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ChRoss
I completely agree with your argument for giving fair consideration. But put
this aside, customer have the rights to choose their desired platform right?
And since this is for government, they should have valid reason with their
choice.

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bad_user
Private businesses and individuals can do whatever they want with their money.

The government instead is paying using taxpayers money.

