How the Government Subsidizes Big Software/Hardware

Let's start with a theoretical large commercial software/hardware company called.... PH.

PH sells a software suite for large scale server management that at your large company, would wind up costing 30 million dollars in licenses.

When the quote comes back however, its 4 million.

Why is the list price so different than the actual price? Do they just want to pretend you are getting a deep discount for being such a "good customer" ?


When the government wants to buy computer software/hardware, it has to go through the government buying/bid process. However, my first year in college, an "Intro to Marketing" instructor who was a retired marketing man explained the scam to me.

The vendor you want, sits with you (the gov't person), and has you write your requirements so that only their product fits the bill. So when it goes for bid, it's rigged.

Now, add that corrupt process with unreal pricing and you get how taxpayers subsidize the latest "cloud management" stack from Oracle, EMC, HP, or the other captains of industry.

That's terrible but not unexpected.

This is what happens when you have people whose job it is to spend other people's money.

corplinx wrote:

The vendor you want, sits with you (the gov't person), and has you write your requirements so that only their product fits the bill. So when it goes for bid, it's rigged.

That is part of Use Case development. A software development process that should be ended.

Every organization thinks their processes and procedures are somehow special. In many cases, they actually are different at a casual glance. But in most of those cases, they're different only because they've never done a process analysis and normalization to discover the redundancies. Doing this process analysis is painful because it identifies stove pipes, castles and motes, and other relics with which they've become comfortable (but it's always been that way...we need to use that program so make it fit...we can't touch that department...yada).

Rare is the truly unique process. Inevitably, once a process analysis is done, you discover your entire organization can fit comfortably into a quick-books spreadsheet and you can let go of 3/4 of your office sitters

The two Bobs were heroes, not villains. They could have saved Initech

Rob Lister wrote:

they're different only because they've never done a process analysis and normalization to discover the redundancies.

We need a committee to study this

or at least a meeting or two

ed wrote:

Rob Lister wrote:

they're different only because they've never done a process analysis and normalization to discover the redundancies.

We need a committee to study this

or at least a meeting or two

Have your people bots Tweet my people bots and our avatars will do a Skype session.

CH

Cool Hand wrote:

ed wrote:

Rob Lister wrote:

they're different only because they've never done a process analysis and normalization to discover the redundancies.

We need a committee to study this

or at least a meeting or two

Have your people bots Tweet my people bots and our avatars will do a Skype session.

CH

<Out of Office reply> Ed is in Europe for the next 3 weeks. If you need immediate help please email B.Obama@US.Gov

corplinx wrote:

...

When the government wants to buy computer software/hardware, it has to go through the government buying/bid process. However, my first year in college, an "Intro to Marketing" instructor who was a retired marketing man explained the scam to me.

The vendor you want, sits with you (the gov't corporate person), and has you write your requirements so that only their product fits the bill. So when it goes for bid, it's rigged.

Now, add that corrupt process with unreal pricing and you get how taxpayers subsidize the latest "cloud management" stack from Oracle, EMC, HP, or the other captains of industry.

Fortune 500 Cos. have the same problem for many issues. This ploy works best at year end when you have unspent capital investment Budget and the project can be appropriated within your Division via funds transfer.

When smaller companies bid for government projects, they have to jump through numerous hoops during the proposal process, produce reams of supporting documents, and then take their chances with the capricious feds...whereupon the rep from Bechtel takes the General to lunch and says, "Sign here." Wink wink, nudge nudge.

This is what happens when you have a country that's run by big Corporations.

Oh wait, that's what you wanted in the first place. I guess this is an endorsement?

First.