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Google Wins Injunction Against Agency Using Microsoft Cloud
jfruhlinger writes "A judge has granted an injunction stopping the US Department of the Interior from moving forward with the adoption of Microsoft's cloud services. The injunction was sought by Google, which of course has its own suite of cloud offerings. Google claimed that the Interior Dept. failed to consider other options as required."
Apparently they run the Department of the Interior like the Air Force. I remember waiting four weeks and paying $80 for three ounces of a very specific lithium grease for some of our equipment that had an extremely similar clone at Lowe's for $4.
When a company has to litigate to get customers/compete, it's not a good sign.
On the other hand, when the government simply decides to go with an existing vendor without considering other options, it's also not a good sign. After all, we don't want government wasting money on inferior solutions, do we?
... and then they built the supercollider.
You really think the Department of the Interior manager who made this purchasing decision is an IT person?
I have no idea what your objection means. The whole point of requiring a tendering process by government departments is to prevent abuses like politicians and/or bureaucrats giving their buddies lucrative contracts. Heck, I don't even directly work for the government, but am employed by a government contractor to run certain programs, and when purchasing equipment for those programs I'm required to get three separate quotes, and if I don't go with the cheapest one, I have to state why (ie. cheapest bid includes workstations with older CPUs, less RAM, insufficient OEM software, wrong edition of OS, etc.) It's a pain, but I understand the reasoning. Tax dollars are at play and I need to justify the expenditure.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Google doesn't give a shit about some measly $56 million, 5-year contact with DOI. That's chickenfeed to them, and they know that contract will eventually go to Microsoft anyway. They're sending a message to other potential government customers that if they play fast and loose with the bidding rules, the big dog will crap on their house.
Especially when that existing vendor is a serial felon all over the world.
..and find it amusing that people are making cracks about how the govt dropped the ball, instead of the obvious fact that the govt. chose MS after considering options and google is just jilted. Because that would be evil.
And I find it amusing that you spout off random nonsense, which happens to be the exact opposite of the article, Google's initial complaint, and what the court found, which was that the government did NOT provide proper justification or approvals, or considered any alternatives.
Let me quote the relevant part for you to save you from having to read the article (which you obviously (a) did not and/or (b) are simply trolling):
Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims wrote, in an order made public late Tuesday, that a July determination by an assistant secretary naming Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal (BPOS) as the agency's standard for messaging and collaboration did not include "proper justification or appropriate approvals."
and...
The agency's determination that BPOS was its standard included "no estimate of internal agency cost" of other options, Braden wrote. The determination also failed to list any potential alternatives, including Google's attempts to sell the agency on its products, she (the judge) wrote.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
And lets be honest folks: There is probably a damned good reason why they were looking at MS products only, and it was most likely because they have an assload of MS Stuff that would cost a mint to convert. I mean if they require Exchange and Sharepoint, they have a metric ton of VBA stuff being used, and Windows desktops everywhere, why in the hell should they be forced to accept bids that won't work? If Google wanted to submit bids on MS products as a VAR that is one thing, but Google docs ain't no MS Word.
It would be like forcing a design house to accept bids from some guy who wanted to rip out all their Macs and replace it with Ubuntu desktops running the Gimp. Does ANYBODY think that is a useful bid? Would they ever in a million years give up all that experience and custom in house code written for Photoshop just to use the Gimp? of course not.
By the same token I bet if we walked into the DOI tomorrow and did an audit on what they are running you'd find a bazillion Windows desktops, with tons of VBA macros, everything controlled by Active directory, with Exchange and Sharepoint. What good will come of having to waste tax dollars on a bid for a solution that won't actually solve anything? Is Google gonna pay to rewrite all that code for free? Are they gonna spring for the cost of retraining everyone out of the goodness of their hearts? No in the end they'll make the DOI jump through hoops before they finally hand them a list that says "These are the MS products we require, because all our stuff is tied into that and we will NOT pay for a complete overhaul!" and then Google will say "Uhhh...sorry we don't sell MS Products" and the money will have been blown for exactly jack and squat. If the DOI had said only MSFT was allowed to bid that would be one thing, but this is just stupid. It is trying to force a product that the customer does not want because they don't want a competitor to sell them a product they DO want. And in the end it is just that more added to the debt for absolutely nothing gained.
Pitiful actions and bad form Google, and from someone that has as much marketshare as you do it just comes off as looking petty and vengeful.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
They very well may have good reasons to go with MS and not Google, but they have to actually do the paperwork on said reasons. They are a government agency and have to show not only that they considered alternatives, but why they rejected them. In this case they did neither.
MIL spec tests are very stringent. In the case of lubricants (solid film) tests such as Falex pressure loads and minimum run times are critical. Different batches made with the same ingredients often yield quite different test results. The QC of mil spec lubricants cost more than the raw materials where I worked for 22 years. If the military wants to make certain its planes, and missiles, fly without critical parts seizing up or smart missiles landing a mile away because the solid film lubricant wasn't quite as durable as expected, then testing and certification is critical. Every test fluid, machine, etc all must be certified to high quality standards. You think the cheap crap at the store is the same as MIL spec materials, simply because the have the same ingredients? You are very wrong.
And lets be honest folks: There is probably a damned good reason why they were looking at MS products only, and it was most likely because they have an assload of MS Stuff that would cost a mint to convert. I mean if they require Exchange and Sharepoint, they have a metric ton of VBA stuff being used, and Windows desktops everywhere, why in the hell should they be forced to accept bids that won't work? If Google wanted to submit bids on MS products as a VAR that is one thing, but Google docs ain't no MS Word.
It would be like forcing a design house to accept bids from some guy who wanted to rip out all their Macs and replace it with Ubuntu desktops running the Gimp. Does ANYBODY think that is a useful bid? Would they ever in a million years give up all that experience and custom in house code written for Photoshop just to use the Gimp? of course not.
By the same token I bet if we walked into the DOI tomorrow and did an audit on what they are running you'd find a bazillion Windows desktops, with tons of VBA macros, everything controlled by Active directory, with Exchange and Sharepoint. What good will come of having to waste tax dollars on a bid for a solution that won't actually solve anything? Is Google gonna pay to rewrite all that code for free? Are they gonna spring for the cost of retraining everyone out of the goodness of their hearts? No in the end they'll make the DOI jump through hoops before they finally hand them a list that says "These are the MS products we require, because all our stuff is tied into that and we will NOT pay for a complete overhaul!" and then Google will say "Uhhh...sorry we don't sell MS Products" and the money will have been blown for exactly jack and squat. If the DOI had said only MSFT was allowed to bid that would be one thing, but this is just stupid. It is trying to force a product that the customer does not want because they don't want a competitor to sell them a product they DO want. And in the end it is just that more added to the debt for absolutely nothing gained.
Pitiful actions and bad form Google, and from someone that has as much marketshare as you do it just comes off as looking petty and vengeful.
You clearly don't work in procurement.
The point of "considering a bid" is to establish all of those things you just said; a company can't be considered to just intrinsically know a bid from Google won't be any good, they need to actually see the bid so they can establish the facts.
A bid consists of a all sorts of things- firstly the price, but also consideration of the complete package, including costs to make everything compatible, converting archives, staff capacities for implementation, etc. If Google could offer to do absolutely everything required to make their solution work for considerably less than MS could offer the same (even if this entailed far less work for the MS engineers) then Google should win it. If they can't, they shouldn't.
That's the whole point of a fair tendering system. Ignoring that process is wrong, and a state agency deserves to be called out on it.
As an example I've played around with DIY audio stuff and something that lots of enthusiasts like using is Vishay-Dale milspec resistors. Seems kinda silly, using milspec resistors in something like a headphone amp, until you look at their properties. You can get them with extremely tight tolerances, and with low variance over temperatures. They are very good if you want to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting over a wide range of conditions. They are also good at dealing with the unexpected. Like maybe you are worried that the power might be able to momentary exceed the resistors rating. No problem, the milspec parts deal with that, a 1/4 watt resistor can actually handle 1/2 watt with no damage, at least for a bit.
Now you may well not need to buy milspec parts to get that, however those parts DO get you that. Their milspec resistors are above and beyond normal cheap resistors in what they are willing to certify. When the idea is hand building something with very tight tolerances (in the case of an audio amp tightly matched tolerances means the amp should have a minimal impact on the sound) it is a choice that can make sense.
Then, speaking of tolerances and variability, even within the line there are differences. You may find that for a given type of 1/4 watt 1k resistor you can get it in 1%, 0.5% and 0.1% at an ever increasing price. They all seem to be made the same, it isn't like the 0.1% is a different design, like some of the really high precision ones. Well the deal is that when they make them, they come out different. So they test them and batch them. If you buy 1% parts, they are only guaranteeing the resistance to be between 1000 and 1010 ohms. Good enough for most uses, however if you need it tighter they sell ones that are tested to be closer to 1000 ohms and guaranteed, hence the tighter ratings. Costs more though, as many of them don't come out that perfect.