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West Virgnia Auditor Finds Cisco Router Purchase Not Performed Legally

Posted by Unknown on from the plan-for-success dept.

coondoggie writes "West Virginia wasted millions in federal grant money when it purchased 1,164 Cisco routers for $24 million in 2010, a state audit concluded. A report issued this month by the West Virginia Legislative Auditor found the state used a 'legally unauthorized purchasing process' when awarding the router contract, paid for with federal stimulus funds, to Cisco. The auditor also found Cisco 'showed a wanton indifference to the interests of the public' in recommending the investment in its model 3945 branch routers, the majority of which were 'oversized' for the requirements of the state agencies using them, the report (PDF) stated."

67 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. It's honestly slightly astonishing... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    This library has a 3945.

    Somebody at Cisco must have made quite a bonus...

    1. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's the same worldwide, when I worked in public sector in the UK some years back it was absolutely no different.

      The companies know it too, which is why public sector contracts are seen as so lucrative most the time. This is also why I made the move to private sector, sure I miss my 38 days leave a year + 15 more through accrued flexi time and my final salary pension scheme, but ultimately I'm not working with the kind of idiots who are responsible for this sort of thing, and that's worth more than any amount of leave or pension (and besides, private sector career progression is more about talent, than how old you are, so it's been a good move career wise too anyway).

      This isn't to say I'm some kind of right wing capitalist that Republican's love, on the contrary, I'm quite socialist in my views, but at the end of the day you can still give too much money to a particular public sector department, and this is exactly what happens when you do, and it's the same wherever you are in the world.

    2. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I worked public sector, the first priorities weren't getting the best price or best value. They were, in order:

      1) Buy it from a registered state contractor (most of which had ridiculously jacked-up prices)

      [or, if a state contractor didn't have it]:

      2) Find a state contractor and get a "quote" on it (translation: Have a registered state contractor buy it for you and then attach a hefty fee on top of what they paid, rather than buy it directly and save money)

    3. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't see it as particularly a public/private difference, but a difference of well-run and poorly-run organizations. That might correlate, but I've seen plenty of examples on the opposite sides as well.

      On the private-sector side: have you ever looked at how Enterprise procurement works? Cisco makes a ton of money doing exactly the same thing there. You find some Fortune 100 firm that has a lot of money but no clue about technology, and you recommend a ridiculously over-specced system, which they buy because nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco. Oracle makes their money doing that too.

      And on the private-sector side: procurement in Scandinavia is much less of a mess than in the US and UK, which is why building the Copenhagen Metro cost less than 1/10 of the per-mile cost of most U.S. metro construction projects.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    4. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by silas_moeckel · · Score: 3, Informative

      It looks like this was a voip build out. So they specked a router supporting a variety of interfaces (old school T1 and ethernet bits) that did local voip processing with PSTN backup and switching with POE. Getting a POE switch, a voip PBX, and the right router would have been far cheaper and probably used less rack space. To do it all in one box in cisco land it's about the correct box.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    5. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Xest · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "I don't see it as particularly a public/private difference, but a difference of well-run and poorly-run organizations. That might correlate, but I've seen plenty of examples on the opposite sides as well."

      Yes, this is absolutely true. The problem (at least here in the UK) is that public sector is almost universally bad because there is absolutely no accountability. In private sector, if you do a bad job, you eventually go bankrupt and lose your job, in public sector that never happens.

      I'd be interested to know why public sector projects do work better in Scandinavia, is it because there is more accountability, or is it simply because they're not given so much money to work with? On a project that can be achieved with £1million for example, what should happen is:
      Person 1) Here's £1million to go do x
      Person 2) I can't do x with only £1million
      Person 1) Okay, you're fired, we'll get someone who can

      What actually happens is:
      Person 1) Here's £1million to go do x
      Person 2) I can't do x with only £1million
      Person 1) Okay, here's £2million more

      Or just outright:
      Person 1) Here's £3million to go do x
      Person 2) Okay

      I do completely agree the problem isn't specific to public sector just because public sector is public sector, but because of the nature of public sector generally in that it tends not to be held to account or given enough incentive to do a good job (and by incentive, I mean, you get to keep your job if you don't do a shit job). Natural selection is inherent in private sector - those businesses or employees that do shit, go bankrupt or get fired, but it's not inherent in public sector due to the fact central government will just bail them out, and up taxes to cover the cost if need be. There it needs to be created artificially, and I don't think many governments do that.

      This is also why the bank bailout may not have been particularly smart, but interestingly as a result of the bank bailout governments have created a lot more legislation to govern how they operate and what they can get away with precisely to create at least some of the necessary accountability artificially. Yet they wont do that with public sector even though it suffers the exact same problems - institutional incompetence fed by lack of accountability.

    6. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You missed the looping which is important, what happens is:

      Person 1) Here's $3 million to go do X
      Person 2) OK, I shall do it
      [ time passes ]
      Person 2) Ive finished, and I only spent $1 million, so here's $2 million back.
      [ time passes]
      Person 1) Here's $1 million to do do Y

      Or:

      Person 1) Here's $3 million to go do X
      Person 2) OK, I shall do it
      [ time passes ]
      Person 2) We've run out of money but we are almost done.
      Person 3) OK, here's another $1 million.
      [ time passes]
      Person 2) Ive finished.
      [ time passes]
      Person 1) Here's $4 million to do do Y

      If you've worked in anywhere that sells to large businesses/government you will have seen the end of budget rush as departments rush orders to get billed before the end of the budget year so they can spend their allocated budget before they have to give anything left back and get less next round. It's always our busiest time of year.

    7. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In private sector, if you do a bad job, you eventually go bankrupt and lose your job

      In theory and in the long-run, perhaps, but this can take a very long time, and may never happen if other things outweigh it. I have some second-hand experience with how things work in the oil industry, and procurement there is a mess in part because it really has only a marginal effect on the company's long-term survival, which depends almost entirely on a mixture of oil exploration on the one hand, and geopolitical factors like the price of oil and whether Russia is going to confiscate your mineral rights, on the other hand. Overpaying for Cisco routers is lost in the noise: if a company like Exxon is doing well, it can afford it, and if it's going to go bankrupt, it won't be because of Cisco routers.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    8. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't see it as particularly a public/private difference, but a difference of well-run and poorly-run organizations.

      Assuming that the private sector is always efficient is wrong, because anyone who's worked in large private sector companies knows full well that it's not. For example, most of the "management consulting" industry shouldn't really exist, because it's entire reason for existing is so that some manager Smith can hire an outside firm to tell their boss that Smith's plan is better than Jones' plan and thus secure Smith that promotion. One of the things that's becoming clear in corporate governance is that an employee of a corporation faced with making a decision that benefits themselves versus a decision that benefits the organization will pick themselves almost every time.

      Assuming that the public sector is always inefficient is also wrong. There are public agencies that are ridiculously efficient at what they do. For example, the administrative overhead of Social Security is approximately 0.9%. The VA gets more bang for the health care buck than Medicaid, Medicare, and private medical insurance. The CFPB is doing a pretty good job on a shoestring budget. The National Park Service costs about $3 billion a year, which sounds like a lot but is actually about $10 per American, and in return it serves 280 million visitors a year, which certainly seems like a pretty good value.

      More to the point, assuming the public sector inherently sucks means we stop rewarding those public servants that do a really good job, which will reduce their motivation and pretty much guarantee that they'll do it badly. And assuming the private sector inherently is efficient means we stop holding private organizations accountable when they screw up. Doing either is really stupid.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    9. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      Sure, but you get a bigger budget by starting with more and overrunning that than you do starting with less and overrunning.

    10. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by ByOhTek · · Score: 2

      Part of the issue is also that

      1) Government jobs often don't pay as well as their private equivalents - so it's harder for them to keep good talent.
      2) A lot of regulation (at least where I'm at) is against corruption, and not towards efficiency - No, it doesn't always prevent the former, that's virtually impossible, but there are times where the two are mutually exclusive unless the laws start to get convoluted.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    11. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Xest · · Score: 2

      This is actually one of my pet peeves in the UK too.

      Local government budgets renew in April, it gets to December the busiest time of the year for traffic, and what do they do?

      They blow all remaining budget on roadworks.

      You know, rather than plan it throughout the year, doing a lot of it in the summer and so forth when the roads are quiet, they wait until commuters are already suffering the clusterfuck of Christmas shoppers and they then just screw it all up a bit more too by closing half the roads, lanes, and traffic control measures that exist too. This is why in December, rather than a few minutes from heavy traffic being added onto your journey, it's usually a substantial increase over here. Those works spill over until March, as stuff never gets done on time in the winter and over Christmas when weather is always at it's worst.

    12. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by herring0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Where I am you can add a step before (1) -
      0.1) Buy it from a HUB (Historically Underutilized Business - minority or woman owned business) - even more insane prices than state list

      Recently we were also told we can't use the HUBs we have been using (though costly were quite capable and providing a good service to us) and must use another HUB because now we aren't buying enough from specific minority/gender combination groups.

      Only at that point are we allowed to proceed the aforementioned idiocy.

    13. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      Plus, you could always be "too big to fail".

      If you are a large company that's richer than some small nations, you may find that the government won't let you fail regardless of how badly you screw up. If anything, they will bail you out and let you become even bigger (like AA).

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    14. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Trepidity · · Score: 2

      On the pay, my impression of the UK (never having lived there myself) is that starting pay is pretty good for government jobs, but that it tops out very quickly, so for more skilled people the public-sector pay isn't very appealing. E.g. if you're a good programmer, you'll never get a public-sector offer anywhere near what Microsoft UK or a London bank will pay you.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    15. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Dragonslicer · · Score: 2

      and besides, private sector career progression is more about talent, than how old you are

      Haha, good one!

      Talent probably matters more than age in career progression, but it's commonly less important than politicking and nepotism.

    16. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Accountability in government is a bit harder. It's easy to show that you did your job correctly and by the letter, which makes it hard to get fired in public service since there are rules about how to fire someone. In the private world though you can do everything correctly by the book and it doesn't stop you from getting fired if someone higher up thinks you aren't effective.

      You can buy the most expensive product as a public service employee and still be able to show that you followed the rules correctly and have the proper paper trail and filled out the correct sole-source-supplier requests which were approved by someone else.

    17. Re:It's honestly slightly astonishing... by Amouth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Running a small PC repair shop in the 90's we wanted to be able to support the local schools as we felt we could easily provide better prices services than they where getting. But i can tell you that we also had to give them a much higher rate than normal because there contract agreements had some insane terms.

      My personal favorite was that when publishing a product on the price-list we MUST guaranty availability at that price point for 7 years. At first i figured that you had to keep that price, but in the fine text it meant you had to keep replacement stock too. If say 6 years of it being on the list they wanted one and you didn't have it and could not provide it you where liable to replace all of there previous purchases for that component with a compatible component (at your expense) from the vendor list (either form your self or another vendor) and they where the ultimate decider on what was considered compatible. In the end we selected a very limited selection of what we normally offered and we did over charge a lot because we would basically have to ensure availability for 7 years, so we would put it out there marked up and watch the demand and then as the product got harder to stock we would stock pile them to the point we could ensure availability.

      We made a lot of money, but so much money was wasted that it just isn't even funny. I still have some 3c905b's from way back in this mess. Personally i'm glad not to be dealing with that stuff anymore.

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  2. A biz trying to make a sale? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    And a customer that doesn't know what they're buying? Say it ain't so!

    Caveat emptor - get smarter buyers.

    1. Re:A biz trying to make a sale? by Virtucon · · Score: 2

      Competitive bidding and requirements development are cornerstones of all government procurement processes. I guess the WV procurement team needs a refresher course in doing that because if they'd gone to HP or any other provider they would have provided their hardware solution which could have demonstrated that what Cisco proposed was overblown. Nobody likes competitive bidding but it does help weed out these kinds of things.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  3. Newspeak by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    "Not Performed Legally"?
    "'legally unauthorized purchasing process"?

    So, the opposite of legal... would be illegal.

    Also: "Cisco showed a wanton indifference to the interests of the public"

    Really, a profit driven company tried to fleece the public? I'm shocked, shocked like a man making toast in the bath!

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:Newspeak by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In a decent world, this would get the company blacklisted for all government-funded future purchases for a certain time. Which would make company care a LOT about not fleecing the public.

    2. Re:Newspeak by penix1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Disclaimer: I work in the office where this occurred although NOT a part of this mess...

      Having said that, if anyone has ever tried to work with the WV purchasing division you come to realize they practice real hard to rise to a level of incompetency the likes of which would make a pinhead blush. This isn't the first time officials have tried to "get around" them. Joe Manchin himself used a practice called stringing to avoid using them when he was governor. Projects languish over there for years meanwhile the clock is ticking on the funds available. I have had a contract sit there for 18 months with no end in sight.

      I am not trying to excuse what was done simply trying to get others to see a broken system in this state. When you make things so difficult to work with of course people try to find a way a way around it. That is human nature. This incident has less to do with any sort of corruption (although some did exist in the Cisco sales rep and his representations) than it had to do with trying to meet the conditions of the grant quickly which was one of the conditions itself. Remember, stimulus funds were supposed to be used for "shovel ready" projects. Few states met that requirement....

      --
      This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
    3. Re:Newspeak by jimbolauski · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Not Performed Legally"? "'legally unauthorized purchasing process"?

      So, the opposite of legal... would be illegal.

      Also: "Cisco showed a wanton indifference to the interests of the public"

      Really, a profit driven company tried to fleece the public? I'm shocked, shocked like a man making toast in the bath!

      Cisco did not fleece the public they put in their proposal and the government accepted it, this has all the markings of money burning a hole in the auditors pocket. The auditor had $24 million to spend so they spent it, they don't care if they had a cheaper option, they wanted the best they could get for the money they had, even if they didn't need it. Unfortunately the way government spending works is you are expected to spend every dime they give you. If you don't spend it all then you are punished by getting less or none next time around.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    4. Re:Newspeak by Sloppy · · Score: 2

      Regulation is when you point a gun at someone else's face and tell them to do things the way you say, or else. He's talking about altering their own internal decisions. That's not regulation; that's administration.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    5. Re:Newspeak by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      No. You don't understand state spending.

      If they didn't spend the money on it's stated purpose they would have had to return it to the feds. Like all the states that realized that accepting high speed rail funding would require them to run the money losers forever. The smart ones said 'no thanks' and returned the money.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    6. Re:Newspeak by isorox · · Score: 2

      Except it did NOT need to cost as close the 24 mil as possible, it needed to cost as little as possible while still accomplishing the task.

      The state was free to burn the rest of the 24 mil on more useful things.

      You have no idea how public, or large corporation, funding works. Either that or you're being sarcastic.

  4. Re:Being a crook is not illegal by Threni · · Score: 2

    What could be done is expecting Cisco to pay back the difference between what they got and what they should have got next time a contract comes up somewhere...they have to be $x cheaper than their rivals charge for the same spec kit. There has to be a price otherwise they won't change.

  5. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And even if something did, it's just part of the cost of doing business for both companies attached to the tit of government and those officials getting off on shoveling out other peoples' money.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  6. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by Luckyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a whole lot of room to go down in specs before you could even consider talking about "insifficiently specced gear".

    It's kind of like using that argument when someone needed a shovel and got sold a truck with a plough.

  7. Overprized (most likely) and oversized ... by garry_g · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looking at the regular wholesale price in Germany (which is most likely higher than in the US), a price of $20k per piece would require e.g. a voice bundle. Plus, with a purchase of that many devices, Cisco would allow for a project price that would save at least another 20-30% on the purchase ...
    As for the oversized, unless they were setting up every site with full 1G or more, they are oversized by at least one or two models ... 29xx series will in most cases handle any "regular" speed used in WAN environments, even with partial 1G speeds ...

  8. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by LurkerXXX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apparently you are totally unaware of the state of bridges in this country if you think our infrastructure is fine.

    We've got lots of infrastructure that is falling apart. West Virginia just happens to have IT clueless folks running the place spending money where they shouldn't, and the biggest networking IT specialist around recommended something insane.

  9. Been there, done that by Virtucon · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can attest that while Cisco makes great products their sales folks and technical sales consultants are very unscrupulous at times. At a company I was working for we were looking for competitive bidding on a new Wifi Infrastructure. We were currently using old Cisco equipment however management wanted to have an open process and do a competitive bid. The Cisco sales staff and their channel support did everything they could to undermine the competitors even though our bake off showed that in terms of some features, the competitors had better features and security. Ultimately when they sensed that they would lose, they used a product roadmap meeting with our CIO as an opportunity to throw my management and my entire team under the bus at our "flawed" thinking.

    Hard sell techniques? Yes. Unprofessional? Definitely.

    In this case, it sounds like the Cisco sales rep was looking at his bonus, which was probably very very lucrative considering the total sales contract price. Any Network Architect or Engineer worth his salt wouldn't have recommended this overblown hardware based on the requirements. Hopefully West Virginia will use this opportunity to fix the holes in their procurement process so this doesn't happen again because I don't see Cisco ever giving them a refund.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:Been there, done that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Ultimately when they sensed that they would lose, they used a product roadmap meeting with our CIO as an opportunity to throw my management and my entire team under the bus at our "flawed" thinking.

      So, was their evil plan foiled or not?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Been there, done that by silas_moeckel · · Score: 2

      Nobody's sales staff is as bad as EMC. After loosing a bake off due to inability to meet minimum performance requirements (which everybody else had done) with there SE's allowed to do any tuning to the SAN and OS over 2 days. They went up two levels to the CEO face to face out of work and proceeded to trash testing methodologies, then insisted that doubling the server buy would make there stuff perform (to the tune of 15m, more than the SAN gear in total), and for the ultimate in wrong started making plea's that if they did not win the business the sales guy would loose his house calling the CEO's wife.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    3. Re:Been there, done that by Virtucon · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, they didn't win but we did have a "called on the carpet" discussion about it. We presented our facts and also noted that the procurement organization was in charge and could verify our requirements and process. He couldn't say anything after that.
      Cisco did make millions more on Nexus upgrades to the infrastructure but after that any time I see Cisco I just wince.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  10. Cisco's M.O. by pedestrian+crossing · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not surprised, this is Cisco's M.O.

    Every quote I've ever gotten from them has been massively inflated by speccing higher end equipment than is necessary. They always give the big pitch for the bigger product - usually to upper mgmt, whether it is overkill or not. Everyone wants to believe they are "the enterprise", so Cisco talks them into enterprise-grade equipment.

    Not to say that the state employees shouldn't have questioned the quote. But odds are that the only technically knowledgable people involved were Cisco's people, and they are the pros at fleecing the sheep.

    --
    A house divided against itself cannot stand.
  11. Re:A fool and his money by Larryish · · Score: 2

    Those Responsible for Sacking the People Who Have Just Been Sacked, Have Been Sacked.

  12. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by vulcan1701 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The way to win would have been to hire or use a CCDA or CCDP certified consultant. The design associate/professional track is for consulting on Cisco networking device options, feature sets and port density.

    Unfortunately, most consultant firms hire with only CCNA certification which means you are knowledgeable enough to be dangerous.

  13. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most equipment has a finite life. Yes we have all see that 15y/o Cisco box in the back room everyone is afraid that if the UPS allowed to power down the fans in the Cisco or its power-supplies would never spin back up. Mostly competent business or state agencies depreciate stuff faster than that and replace it.

    You should be able to reasonably estimate the needs of a facility like a library 3-5 years out. Then you build yourself a little head room. Take your most critical estimated capacity requirement multiply by 1.4 and size accordingly. Even that can lead to some over kill; like putting a 2811 where an 1841 might do, but its usually enough prevent any nasty surprises that require replacing equipment before the end of its service life. On balance it works out okay cost wise and may leave you with some residual value in the equipment that you can then resell. No reasonable person would have faulted Cisco for doing what I just described but some of the reports on this clearly show them over specifying by 5 or 10 times and more.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  14. Re:Do we need to rehash old stories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not a rehash, it's an update. If you had bothered to read any of the links you would see that these are the state's official findings on the matter, and it puts Cisco in the position of potentially not being able to bid on state projects in the future.

  15. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by CodeheadUK · · Score: 5, Funny

    Possibly a British-ism. Tit is a common slang word for a breast LIke boob, jubblie, nork, funbag, chesticle or Bulgarian Airbag.

  16. Re:Being a crook is not illegal by RazorSharp · · Score: 2

    It's still a bad situation for Cisco. I remember a similar story about them several months ago that happened in California. When a company builds a reputation for dishonesty and ripping off their customers, other potential customers will stop even considering them as an option. Even if this type of news doesn't get the same type of attention as the latest high-profile murder case, Cisco's competitors are paying attention and this will become a part of their sales pitch.

    It's not illegal to be an unethical crook.

    Crook - someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime

    Your point may be valid but your choice of words is not.

    --
    "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
  17. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by msauve · · Score: 2
    "Maybe a moral responsibility, but certain not a legal one"

    Not so certain. The auditor's opinion, and first recommendation from that section of the report:

    It is the opinion of the Legislative Auditor that the Cisco representatives showed a wanton indifference to the interests of the public... The State Purchasing Division should determine whether the actions or inactions by the Cisco representatives fall under the purview of [section] 5A-3-33d of the West Virginia Code and are grounds for debarment.

    That section states:

    Grounds for debarment are:...Any other cause of a serious and compelling nature amounting to knowing and willful misconduct of the vendor that demonstrates a wanton indifference to the interests of the public and that caused, or that had a substantial likelihood of causing, serious harm to the public.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  18. Dual power supplies by Skapare · · Score: 2

    Most of the report focuses on dual power supplies. Are those really needed? Maybe. Probably not in most cases.

    Dual power supplies perform a couple of useful functions. If a power source fails, the other power supply fed by the alternate source keeps the router running. This is good for critical operations, and in maybe a few circumstances like the state police, it might have been useful to them. The other function is to keep the router running if a power supply dies. I've found this to be rare, but not impossible, with Cisco equipment. Again, it depends on how critical things are. Students and teachers in a school might be quite upset, and some online education processes can be disrupted, but education can still go on with substituted lessons during the time it takes for a replacement to arrive.

    As for capacity, the router should have been chosen to match the designated capacity level, which did vary widely. Then when any facility needed to be upgraded to a higher capacity level, the router would be swapped out to match. A hand-me-down approach could be used for another smaller facility to use the bumped out router for their capacity growth. A range of routers in a pool could make that work. OTOH, politicians might also cry foul if a few routers are sitting in storage to support hurried replacement and hand-me-down steps.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  19. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by Tokolosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Three things will happen:

    1. Someone will step forward to say that he predicted this would happen, but nobody would listen to him.
    2. Some low-level functionary will have his life ruined.
    3. Some high-level functionary will get a lobbying job or be appointed to a government regulation agency.

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
  20. Re:Actually, it is quite simple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, the reason that the 3945s were recommended was because the state wanted routers with redundant power supplies, and the 3945 is the lowest model Cisco makes with redundant power...

  21. Re:Being a crook is not illegal by silas_moeckel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It looks like the state wrote a RFP the specified cisco kit and specific cisco kit at that. It looks like they wanted a single box for routing, switching, wireless, secure voip with PSTN fallback, waas, and POE. Cisco charges a HUGE premium to put all that into a single box. The VOIP and WAAS are baby servers each and add the switch in you have filled the add in slots. Anyways this is not something to blame on cisco the IT guys picked a winner by what they specked and how they specked it. Having worked with government IT before it's easy to get stuck doing something stupid, case in point agency was looking to upgrade there 80's 56k frame relay bridged network. I came in as a sub, they had specified a cisco 7500 as the core for a upgrade to DS3's and that it be bridged. Well noting that they were an all IPX shop I recommended routing it took longer to get that change put into the contract and I had auditors questioning if I was trying to give them something lesser. They extended the project and had be connect up the locations via preexisting fiber they are paying 130k a month for DS3's to facilities they have dark fiber to. I had to fight to let the dark fiber be the primary routed path as they did not want to loose face with there 7500 DS3 5 year contract boondoggle, in the end they went from 56k frame to gige fiber with a 45mbs DS3 backup network. At the end of the day if you let the gov IT guys spec more than what they want to do they can easily start picking winners as far as manufacturers, in the case of that 7500 I'm very sure he wanted it as a resume point that he worked with them.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  22. Cisco and FUD by Gim+Tom · · Score: 4, Informative

    This really doesn't surprise me. Having worked with a State government in the late 1990's I was in charge of a conversion from Token Ring to eithernet for a moderate sized network for an agency. Cisco seemed to assume that we were all dumb as dirt and insisted that no other brand of eithernet switches would work with their routers which we were already using and which we did want to stay with for the one router we needed.. A classic case of FUD. Fortunately, they were high bid on the overall project by a factor of over two! By using the vendor WE wanted (who also had the lowest total cost) for the switches, and keeping the Cisco router, the conversion went off ahead of schedule and way under budget and worked fine for as long as I was there. My experience taught me that they really didn't CARE what was best for the customer, they just wanted the sale.

  23. Re:Nice spin there... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    performed their legal duty to maximize shareholder value

    I'm getting tired of people translating this meme into reasons why a sales rep performed jackassery like the sale in question. Yes, the company owes its shareholders a true and ongoing effort to make their shares valuable. Part of that effort includes making the company valuable by maintaining its market-worthiness through the stewardship of its reputation with its customers. When a sales rep oversells like this, and it comes out in the press, it erodes the value of the company, and is counter to the make-shareholders-happy mandate.

    The "corporate America is inherently bad because publicly traded companies must do wrong-headed things because they're required to" attack on businesses is just wrong. Thousands of businesses, every day, increase their near and long term value by being valuable to their customers. Nobody likes to talk about that in ranty internet forums because it takes all the fun out of shouting about The Man etc.

    What Cisco did in this case was demonstrably not in the shareholders' interests.

    I hate corporate America as much as the next guy

    What you hate are the people and incidents that make you hate those people and incidents. In the meantime, millions of people at work in thousands of companies do sensible things every day, and have loyal customers as a result. But that never makes the news because it doesn't provide something to bitch about, and where would Slashdot be without that?

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  24. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by afeeney · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't forget that the person who actually did predict that this would happen or even protested at the time is now effectively demoted or had to find another job, for being a "poor communicator" or "not a team player."

  25. Re:What? by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 2

    On what planet does CISCO bear a responsibility to the 'interests of the public'?

    Seriously?

    CISCO's responsibility to its shareholders, pretty much* full stop.

    Why? I mean, as a citizen of this country, I am expected to show some responsibility to the nation and my fellow citizens. I can't just run amuck and do as I please, raping and plundering. And not just because the law says I can't but because that's part of a social contract that helps keep civilization going.

    Why should a corporation - especially in America, where it is granted pseudo-personhood - be exempt from this expectation?

    I need to make a living too; I have a responsibility to my family. That doesn't mean I can go out and bilk the government out of billions.

    Corporations make use of public resources - mail, roads, subsidized electricity and power, an educated workforce, protection from foreign invasion. They have as much responsibility to the country as any person.

    Does their charter indicate that they need to pursue courses of action that are profitable to their shareholders? Of course. But not at a cost to the host nation that supports them. To suggest otherwise is extremely damaging to the society we live in, and it's disheartening to see such ideas even bandied about.

  26. Re:Actually, it is quite simple... by msauve · · Score: 5, Informative

    " the state wanted routers with redundant power supplies"

    Well, that's what Cisco claims, but they can't document it. The best they could do was show that redundant power was included in some spreadsheets which the state reviewed. People within the state deny making redundant power a requirement, although they did discuss it for "24/7/365 locations such as regional jails and DHHR state hospitals."

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  27. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by egamma · · Score: 2

    In common usage here in the US, women's breasts are tits, not teats. Teats are generally attached to cows, goats, etc. It's been that way since the 1960s that I'm aware of.

    So...is the government a woman or a goat? I suppose that will determine the correct word.

    --
    Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
  28. My exp working in govt by MrLint · · Score: 2

    My experience is this:

    1) High level person talks to middle IT (and usually incompetent IT manager) about a bunch of buzzwords they read in an in-flight magazine
    2) IT middle manager doesn't bother to say (or know) that buzzword won't work or is inappropriate for location.
    3) Peons who actually work on the stuff tell MM all the issues, and as he doesn't understand plows forward anyway.
    4) Bid gets put out and approved because its buzzword capable, and its what was the requested specifications.
    5) Thing of dubious value gets installed ( or not)

    6*) [Bonus!] actual needs aren't met because there no money left becuase of shiny new toy that makes upper level ppl happy that they are "cloud enabled"

  29. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How is this different from any other government purchase, ever?

    --
    No sig today...
  30. It's all in the RFP by HockeyPuck · · Score: 2

    I work in sales for another company selling servers. It's all in the information in the RFP. Do you think the original requirements document sent out specified individually what each police station or library would require? Never. There's very few employees out there in public or private sector that would go down to that detail.

    Oftentimes the purchaser sees the budget they have available to them and hears the age old mantra "use it or lose it." So they buy the biggest and baddest piece of IT gear they can.

    The case that I see now is with servers. Let's say some enterprise is building out a new datacenter using vmware and they want to operationally standardize on a single model. A common practice. So they go out a buy a 1000 Dell/HP/IBM servers. They don't go out and buy 17 of model X, 25 of model Y, etc etc all with different memory/disk configurations depending on the specific workload that will be put on each individual server.

    If the RFPs specified every single requirement for every single location all customers would get a more accurate proposal. However, they don't.

  31. Re:What? by YeeHaW_Jelte · · Score: 2

    "*I'd argue it's in its longer-term self interest to pay attention to the interests of its employees, and probably its home-community. But to the 'public in general'? None whatsoever."

    So, what about customers? Neglecting the interests of your customers will make them turn to another, and will ultimately hurt all the stakeholders of a company. This near-sighted emphasis on shareholders in the anglo-saxon businessworld is STUPID. Even from the most extreme money grabbing greed perspective. I mean, your collective customers have more money combined than the shareholders for sure. Fucking them over might be a short-term win, but in the long term it'll kill your company every time.

    Apart from that, government, besides being a customer, is a stakeholder in itself. It provides critical infrastructure and organizations that allow a company to even exist. Without wanting to argue how 'the public' relates to 'the government', it's really really stupid for a company to alienate itself from the government of its home country.

    This CISCO overselling is just a plain stupid policy all around.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_(corporate)

    --

    ---
    "The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
  32. Re:Do we need to rehash old stories? by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 2

    Few isn't bad as long as it's more than 1.

    --
    Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
  33. Re:Do we need to rehash old stories? by telchine · · Score: 3, Funny

    Belkin!

  34. Re:Do we need to rehash old stories? by fazey · · Score: 2

    Good, they should check out Brocade(formerly known as foundry networks).

  35. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now the thread disintegrates into a big game of teat for tit...

    --
    You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  36. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by AlecC · · Score: 2

    Not so much a slang word as the proper word,originally. Just about all other names for the human mammary glands are either euphemisms or more recent slang. "Breast" originally meant the cheat in general, and could be (and was) applied to both sexes: "his breast swelled with pride" did not imply an imminent bra purchase.

    --
    Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  37. Re:A fool and his money by unixisc · · Score: 2
    As Gary Becker once said, there are 4 scenarios in which one spends money:
    1. 1. Spending one's own money on oneself
    2. 2. Spending one's own money on others
    3. 3. Spending others' money on oneself
    4. 4. Spending others' money on others

    Depending on the scenario, this is what will happen:

    • The person who spends his own money on himself will be careful about how much he spends, while taking good care of himself
    • The person who spends his own money on others will be careful about how much he spends, but not bother about what others get
    • The person who spends others' money on himself will be liberal about how much he spends, while taking good care of himself
    • The person who spends others' money on others will be liberal about how much he spends, but not bother about what others actually get

    The fourth scenario above is a description of government, and hence, the trends that one sees worldwide, regardless of country

  38. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by CowTipperGore · · Score: 4, Informative

    I likewise call WV home and I've been in IT here for nearly two decades. I've worked directly with Mark Williamson, the Cisco engineer being scapegoated in this mess, many times over the years. I'll say going in that I know I may come off as a Cisco shill. You're welcome to review my post history to see otherwise. I have purchased, implemented, and managed their products at my jobs over the years and I'm fairly agnostic about brand at this point. However, a few things need to be said about this issue and how it is being presented.

    • The politicians in Charleston are responsible for this. Period. The auditor's report blames Cisco for undermining the purchasing process because the government employees didn't follow the law. It isn't Cisco's responsibility to put a purchase out to bid. The state government approached them with the grant money and a request to help them spend it. This exact routine happens regularly. This one just happens to be so egregious that local newspaper reporter (Eric Eyre with the Charleston Gazette) refused to let it pass unnoticed.
    • The bloggers who are personally attacking Mark (and posting his email and phone numbers with urges to tell him what you think) are allowing the state's shuffling of blame to work. In half a dozen projects that he's helped me spec over the years, he was never the least bit underhanded or disingenuous. I know my stuff and do not take well to bullshit from vendors. I occasionally had to put the local Cisco rep in his place, but I never had to do that with Mark.
    • Mark is an engineer, not a salesman. He builds quotes based upon the needs of the customer. The customer's need in this case was to spend a pile of grant money on technology somehow related to homeland security. Show me the State's RFP and agreement with Cisco that contradicts what Cisco ultimately sold and I'll concede a lot of this. Until then, I fail to see how Cisco, and Mark personally, is at fault for doing exactly what they were asked to do.
    • By focusing the blame on Cisco, the State is successfully deflecting attention from the countless other scandals in this grant. The state Homeland Security chief, Jimmy Gianato was the grant administrator and led the project. Despite the position taken by the auditor, he still defends the purchase as appropriate. Mr. Gianato also defended paying his 25 year old son $73,000 of grant money across four months to help design and build a dozen microwave towers. He then defended hiring his son at $37,500 per year to inspect the same towers for the State. His son worked out of his home and was provided all expenses (rental vehicles, meals, lodging, gas, and other incidentals on his personal credit card) paid out of the grant.
    • One last tidbit that everyone seems to be ignoring - the equipment was specced and provided by Cisco but it was not sold to the state by Cisco. They work through their partner network for the sales. The primary VAR for that in WV is Verizon's Network Integration group. Our state CTO, Gale Givens, was a career Verizon executive, recently in charge of the territory that includes WV. VNI made a pretty penny for little effort on this deal.

    This stimulus money was treated as a windfall by Jimmy Gianato and abused like every pork barrel project in WV has been for as long as anyone remembers. Allowing the State to pin the blame on one (genuinely nice) engineer at Cisco is only continuing the abuse of the system by those really guilty here.

  39. Re:Cisco Sucks BUT... by CowTipperGore · · Score: 2

    No, the way to win would have been to conduct a proper tender exercise. Write a specification, and hire an independent consultant to help review bids against it, if you aren't smart enough to do that in house.

    But you're missing the basic point - the State's goal was to spend a lot of federal grant money on technology related to homeland security. In keeping with the long-standing tradition, a huge sum of that money personally profited friends and family of those in charge. A formal specification, RFP, and review process would have opened the door to others who weren't supposed to get a piece of the pie, and risked shining light on the process. By doing it under the table with the State CTO's former employer, they were able to do what they wanted and apparently get away with it since the blame is being heaped on a Cisco engineer instead of the actual culprits.

  40. Re:COUNTDOWN TO ZERO !! by Macgrrl · · Score: 2

    The 'tit' is the entire breast, the 'teat' is just the nipple.

    Given the US hysteria regarding nipples it's no wonder they are unfamiliar with the use of the word teat.

    --
    Sara
    Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World