[12325] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: NSF Response to Conyers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dennis Fazio)
Mon May 16 05:45:45 1994
From: dfazio@mr.net (Dennis Fazio)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 14:42:28 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <Cpt7M2.I6v@pandora.sf.ca.us> from "Gordon Cook" at May 14, 94 08:30:00 pm
Gordon Cook wrote:
>willing to do the jjob virtually for free? Well to find out that
>AT&T's proposaL WAS JUDGED to be technically unacceptable is something
>of a shocker!!!
This is not at all "a shocker". Noteworthy, perhaps, but not "a shocker."
Anyone who has any experience at all in high-technology development knows
that just because you have experts or working technology in one or a number
of areas doesn't guarantee you can put together a winning SYSTEMS SOLUTION
to any technological problem or need, even if that problem or need is
similar to one in which you have had some experience dealing with. This
happens all the time. MCI, IBM, General Motors, Lockheed, and dozens of
other major players have likely lost many competitive procurements based on
what was judged to be inferior technical solutions to the winning proposals
many times in the past and will surely do so many times in the future.
That in no way reflects on AT&T or any other's overall technical expertise or
capability. It just means they blew this one. Next time, they should do
better.
>
>Seemsw to imply that either NSF did an incredibly BAD job of explaining
>what they wanted
That's not implied in the least. Obviously, NSF did a good enough job for
several others to submit technically acceptable proposals.
or that AT&T's ability to understand the technical
>issues behind the development of TCP/IP over high speed ATM links is
>lacking in a very shocking way!
Again, not implied at all. AT&T may be the world's leader in TCP/IP via ATM
for all we may know, but that doesn't guarantee them the ability to
construct an acceptable proposal. Remember, the solicitation was looking for
a vBNS: Very-high-speed Backbone Network *SERVICE*. Note the emphasis. A
service requires a complex and comprehensive system solution. Do not confuse
superior component design with system design; they are quite different. The
review panel was judging a service, not a technology. A system is not just
an assembly of components. It is an entity that involves people, management,
reporting methods, reliability/quality assurances and many other things
beyond its technological ingredients that must work together as an
integrated whole. You have to take your technology, use it in the design of
a working system service and then do a good job explaining it to an expert
review panel. A slip anywhere along that path can knock you out.
AT&T is a big company with a lot of
>talent.....to think they couldn't put together a prop in this aea that
>would be rated as technically responsive is to me rather amazing.....
To repeat, it is not amazing at all. There are a zillion reasons why a
competent organization or group of people can fail at producing a responsive
proposal. Maybe they misread the requirements. Maybe they put the wrong
technical staff on the job. Maybe they had the wrong writers and editors. It
could have been managed badly and put together hastily at the last minute.
Who knows. We could all speculate to our hearts content and generate a
spirited academic discussion which may or may not be interesting, but we
would all only have the same one in a zillion chance of guessing right.
>Would sure be fascinating to see the prop in question.
Perhaps as an historical curiosity, but I fear that there would be an awful
lot of inferior "second guessing" or "armchair quarterbacking" of the review
panel's decision that would serve no useful purpose.
--
Dennis Fazio, Minnesota Regional Network --|||-- Gabnet: (612) 342-2570
