The short version is that Cignex won this bid originally. Apparently CoA issued this RFP to many, many firms and only 3 responded. The other two were Austin-based. Most people seem to think the reason so few companies responded was that Plone was a requirement and few companies have that expertise.
One of the companies that chose not to bid gave their reasoning here: http://www.trademarkmedia.com/blog/entry/my-thoughts-on-the-city-of-austin-web-site-debacle/ Cignex gave the lowest bid, so they were about to be awarded the contract pending a final vote. Somebody in Austin made a huge deal about this on Twitter and then lots of Austin people freaked out that a $700k+ contract to redo CoA's website was going to a non-Austin-based company. The vote to award the contract was "postponed", and now they redid the entire RFP. I think this process has been going on for well over a year, and it sounds like a pretty broken process. More at http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/03/23/daily22.html Some of the venom is clearly (and completely unfairly) pointed at Plone, likely by those who lost out on this and know nothing about Plone itself. Plone is a convenient scape goat here. Obviously Plone is as open an architecture as they come. On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Matt Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote: > I know very little about this, but know that there was some big contract > for City of Austin's website. Looks liek something has changed, but the PR > looks a bit odd: > > http://www.meterthis.net/ > http://twitter.com/#search?q=COA > > They are saying things like: > > “City is scrapping prior website proposal. Will move to open architecture, > customer-focused structure. No more Plone. New bid released soon" > > Which seems to imply that Plone is not an open architecture. > > Anyone know more about this? Wasn't it something to do with Cignex? > > -Matt > > -- > Matt Hamilton [email protected] > Netsight Internet Solutions, Ltd. Understand. Develop. Deliver > http://www.netsight.co.uk +44 (0)117 9090901 > Web Design | Zope/Plone Development & Consulting | Co-location | Hosting > > > _______________________________________________ > Evangelism mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism > -- Scott Paley | ABSTRACT EDGE Office: 212.352.9311 Direct: 212.352.1470 Fax: 212.352.9498 Website: http://www.abstractedge.com Blog: http://www.brandinteractivism.com
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