The LA Times reported that, "Los Angeles County leaders Thursday put the county at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds when they voted to scrap years of planning for a vast emergency communications system and restart the search for companies to build the complex project."
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Some of the readers may wonder how a big company like Raytheon was brought up short at the last moment: carefully read the last part of this LA Times article and you have the answer.
The pending deal with Raytheon has been roiled by allegations of impropriety for months.
Motorola Co., which also bid on the project, filed a formal protest over the way in which the two companies' proposals were evaluated. Company executives again vigorously protested when a member of the county's negotiation team gave Raytheon staffers classified technical information from Motorola's proposal. Motorola threatened legal action if the deal with Raytheon went through.
Because the board's deliberations were made in private, it was not immediately clear how much, if at all, the prospect of a protracted legal battle played into the decision by the project board to walk away from contract talks.
Motorola officials declined to be interviewed, but made clear they plan to compete with Raytheon once again for the project.
"We support the Board's action today and look forward to responding to their revised solicitation as soon as it is released," the company said in a prepared statement.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
I think that about say's it all. Motorola is the undisputed king of hardball in large contract awards. Raytheon undoubtedly was working as an "Integrator", rather than taking a "Sole Contractor" approach. As far as I know, Raytheon is not in the mobile radio business directly. It is absolutely critical to the Motorola business model to get these large contracts as a sole source provider so that after the competitive process is over they have successfully wedded the buyer to Motorola as the only practical source for expansions, replacements, and spares. When Motorola is not the original provider they have no practical way to charge five thousand dollars for each portable radio in the out years of the project. Open source, standards based systems are deadly to the Motorola business model.
Think of Motorola as the Microsoft of Radio. For Microsoft, Open Office is the worst thing to ever happen in "Their" industry. Keep in mind that mantra that Microsoft first introduced us to: "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt." And likewise "Nobody ever gets fired for specifying Microsoft - er, Motorola."
-- Tom
In message , Tom Horne writes
Sorry Tom, IBM were sowing FUD around the computer industry years before Bill Gates was even a twinkle in his father's eye, and "Nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM" was also one of their key weapons in the battle with the competition.
And in recent news IBM backed away from the Blue Waters program with the NCSA.
Looks like they bit off a bit more than they could chew.
It sounds like a mutually-agreed-upon tombstone for a project that got out of control. Either IBM tried to pad the specs - a time-honored practice in government contracts - or NCSA realized that they were fighting above their weight: either way, it's very rare for a major player to walk away from a high-visability (and high-prestige) project such as "Blue Waters".
I wonder what the straw was that broke this electronic camel's back.
Bill Horne Moderator
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