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Google Sues US Gov't For Only Considering Microsoft

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-not-pass-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Late last week, Google sued the US government for putting out a Request For Quotation for the messaging needs of the Department of the Interior that specified only Microsoft solutions would be considered. Google apparently had spent plenty of time talking to DOI officials to understand their needs and make sure they had a solution ready to go — and were promised that there wasn't a deal already in place with Microsoft. And then the RFQ came out. Google protested, but the protest was dismissed, with the claim that Google was 'not an interested party.'"

8 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Smart Move? by Pojut · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Government contract work is INSANE. One of my wife's relatives works in the field (writing up contracts between the US government and other companies), and based on the little I've talked to him about it, it sounds crazy complicated. I'd rather learn about the tax code instead of government contracts.

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  2. Yes, the Dept. of Interior is corrupt by rsborg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Thanks to years of being "open for business"... probably not starting with, but vastly increasing during the Bush W Administration (and not being brought back under control with Obama admin), the Department of the Interior has been almost thoroughly corrupted and captured.

    It's not surprising that they are the target of lawsuit... what's sad is that they aren't sued by regular citizens for abdication of their purpose in search of bribes and kickbacks from Industry.

    I wish Google best of luck in turning the stone on this cockroach-infested den of iniquity.

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  3. The Most Corrupt Department by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff, centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.

    "Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.

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    1. Re:The Most Corrupt Department by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All of Utah's territory was taken from the nations who lived there before, largely by the Federal government. So Utahans' claim to the land isn't really compelling.

      Besides, that Federal land is given to Utah corporations for free or cheap ranching and mining/drilling, without paying taxes on owning it.

      Corrupt is in the eye of the one paying the bill. Since I pay for Utah to get back 7% more than it pays (and as much as 45% more, in 1987) from Federal spending in the state, as my state loses 21% net, I can see where the real corruption lands.

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  4. Good! by OhHellWithIt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Been there, done that. One of my former employers essentially bet the company on a federal RFP that was seeking POSIX compliance on diskless workstations. We worked our butts off to develop a solution using SCO Unix (back in the days before SCO decided to go into litigation as a business model), but even though it met all the requirements, the contract was awarded to the incumbent, who bid Windows NT -- with some kind of POSIX plug-in. We protested (the loser always protests), but we lost. Maybe it'll turn out better for a deep-pocketed company like Google.

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    "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
  5. Did anyone actually read the complaint? by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems pretty clear that the Governments primary objection was to the fact that the servers providing service would have to be run by Google instead of by the government. Google simply said "you don't need to have the servers on site to be secure, don't worry about it!" I'm not sure that the RFQ was done correctly, but their true concerns are valid. I wouldn't want any government services hosted in anyones cloud, the chance for abuse is huge.

  6. Re:Eheh by mdm-adph · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google Apps may not work in their environment? So, they don't have web browsers?

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    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  7. Re:Smart Move? by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You would be correct in that assumption. The very existence of AMD in its present *Intel Competitor* form was born of the requirement of the government to be able to select among at least two providers. At the moment, there isn't a *Windows competitor" in the sense that it is compatible... there was, but OS/2 was killed through underhanded bundling deals and the like.

    It is beyond time that the government is called to task on the way it follows its own rules.