[9180] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: AT+T would have offered ATM if requested?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Nicholson)
Mon Dec 20 15:23:36 1993
From: Andrew Nicholson <andyni@microsoft.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 93 12:01:35 PST
Somehow I have to suspect that there is nothing wrong with a vendor
offering best available technology in responding to an RFP. I would
presume AT+T offered their best and Sprint offered their best, and ATM
probably looked better to the DOE.
I don't know much about this RFP, but when I worked at Cray Research,
RFP's were not usually written specifying the exact technology to be
used to meet the requirements. Doing so was generally regarded as a
method of specifying a particular vendor's products and was known as
"wiring" the RFP. This is somewhat illegal.
Had the DOE specified ATM knowing that Sprint could deploy immediately
and AT+T could not, this would be a wired RFP, and easily contestable.
To suggest that one vendor has an unfair advantage because they have
developed superior tecnology is a crock. If a vendor cannot supply
products that meet the requirements and another vendor can, then the
loser cannot make some bs claim that "Oh, if you wanted *that*
technology you should have said so, we would have offered it."
Unless the DOE specified some other technology than ATM, then I doubt
that there was anything unreasonable going on. And if the DOE
specified a technology which gave one vendor an unfair advantage, then
the RFP should have been contested and changed.
The upshot of all this is that it is clear that there should be *no*
direct government involvement in actually building a ubiquitous
network. AT+T might be able to bulldog the DOE into accepting their
products, but in the dog eat dog world of the free marketplace, they
have to provide top technology and deploy it quickly to survive. But
then, I hate lawyers, too. ;-)
----------
>Sorry about the rather glaring error in my typing:
>
>Brock, I think the real issue on the DOE contract is not that AT&T could
>not deliver ATM, but that ATM was ***NOT*** what was requested in the RFP.
>Sprint offered ATM and DOE tried to take it. AT&T basically said that
>if you wanted ATM you should have said so. For those of us who make
>a living off trying to interpret what the government wants in RFP,
>AT&T did the right thing. You cannot bait and switch, which is
>what the government in effect did. So, the new RFP now says
>that you can offer ATM. Don't blame AT&T for a government
>mistake which always takes time to rectify.
>
>dennis
>
>
