When I worked for the state government about a million years ago, the *last* thing we ever wanted to do was to put out a RFP for new purchased equipment. Because we had a competitive bidding process, we couldn't just do a make-and-model RFP -- we had to write general specifications for what we wanted, perhaps with the services of a technical consultant, run it through the lawyers, publish it, accept bids, judge the "lowest and best", make a recommendation to the Board, wait for the Board to make an award... and THEN deal with the unsuccessful bidders who would frequently contest the bid award, and sometimes have to go through the bidding process a second time.
If Jim has an Iceberg that runs perfectly well, I can understand if maintaining it is preferable to going through the acquisition process. You're not always able to run the business like a business, not when public money is involved. -- David Andrews A. Duda and Sons, Inc. [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
