Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!ucbvax!MITRE.ARPA!mckee
From: mckee@MITRE.ARPA (H. Craig McKee)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: U.S. Air Force Award of the ULANA Contract
Message-ID: <8810051556.AA11118@mitre.arpa>
Date: 5 Oct 88 15:55:56 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Washington, D.C.
Lines: 20

>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?  

>As they say:  "A penny saved kills your career in the Pentagon."

Kent England and Henry Spencer appear to be buyers, not vendors; 
they do not have to make a living trying to develop and sell goods 
and services to public or private agencies.  
    Vendors want a fair shot at DoD dollars.  When they don't get it
they complain to their Congressmen, and Congress complains to DoD.
DoD procurement officials have to justify their decisions.  The
justification must have been a bit weak a few years ago; thus the 
Competition In Contracting Act (CICA) of 1984.  
    I'm not associated with the ULANA effort, but I do write technical
performance specifications for military systems.  The work is time
consuming and expensive, but to paraphrase Churchill on democracy:
It is the worst possible procurement system, except for all the others
that have been tried.

Regards - Craig