Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!MATHOM.CISCO.COM!BILLW
From: BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William Westfield)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: U.S. Air Force Award of the ULANA Contract
Message-ID: <12436099307.19.BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM>
Date: 5 Oct 88 22:53:47 GMT
References: <1988Oct4.164454.16174@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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In article <25188@bu-cs.BU.EDU> kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) writes:
>	Why didn't you just send a couple of bright Air Force officers
>out to InterOp last week with some spec sheets and some POs?  You
>could have saved yourself a lot of money on consulting fees and you
>could have actually seen the stuff work before you bought it.

One should be somewhat more realistic.  The number of vendors that you
can go to and say "I'd like to buy 5000 IP routers, 4000 TCP terminal
servers, and 1000 miles of assorted interconnecting cables over the
next 5 years, and by the way, I expect you to install, interconnect,
maintain, and train our personnel in their use..." is approximately 0.

Thus some large company like TRW, who has experience in handling such
large bids, replys, and THEY send people to Interop and realted shows
to pick out routers, terminal servers, cable, modems, and so on.
Trying to grow a huge network one or two pieces at a time can be a
bad idea.  (Trying to plan a huge network in one fell swoop can also
be a bad idea...)

William Westfield
cisco Engineering
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