Re: influencing vendors (was: Computational scientists...)

[eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <1993Sep10.115116.7150@sei.cmu.edu> ae@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans) wr
ites:

   > I've talked to folks at one Ada vendor, encouraging them to
   > respond more often to what goes on here.  I pointed out, as Mike
   > has frequently, that this forum is a free chance to tell their
   > side of the story.

   > The response: We don't perceive that the folks we want to influence read
   > comp.lang.ada.

   > Who, I asked, are the folks you want to influence.

   > The folks who make or influence decisions to buy our products...

   Government purchasing regulations have lots of bizarre effects.
This misperception may testify to one of the worst of such effects.
Obviously not everyone involved in every source selection reads this
newsgroup.  But whenever the government feels that there is a need for
advice about Ada as part of a source selection, they arrange for an
"Ada expert" to be part of the techincal evaluation team for that
source selection.

    That expert advice often comes from one of the FFRDCs, and usually
from readers of this newsgroup.  I obviously don't know all of the
people involved in source selections involving Ada issues, not even
all of the MITRE people who do that.  But my educated guess is that
for over 80% of the dollars spent on Ada products purchased directly
or indirectly for the government, or for code development on
government contracts, the technical advice to the government came from
readers of this newsgroup.  (On the other hand, I can say that the
MITRE Bedford Software Center has probably spent several hundred
thousand dollars on Ada compilers--mostly for evaluation purposes.  By
most counts that certainly isn't chicken feed, and I am sure that
other FFRDCs have done the same. However, note that we spend that
money to be able to give good advice to the government...)

     I don't know much about the commercial market anymore. (Although
some Ada compiler vendors know I helped spend some significant money
when I was in the private sector.)  However, I do know about many
foreign government procurements where the process, and the advisors,
are similar (or identical :-) to those for the US government.

      I find it incredible to believe that there are Ada compiler
vendors out there who don't understand this reality.  The guy who
negotiates the final contract doesn't read this newsgroup.  The guy
who decides which vendors will be considered (and often selected)
almost certainly does.

      (Extra disclaimers: I read this over twice to make sure that
there are no names of either compiler (or other) vendors or members of
any source selection teams.  Also nothing said above should be taken
as in any way as implying the the final decision in any source
selection was made by anyone other than the responsible government
official.  The FFRDCs provide advice, and only when asked.  The
responsible procurement officials must weigh all factors in making a
decision, etc.  Finally any illusion that I said one word about any
particular source selection is just that, an illusion.  All source
selection sensitive and company proprietary information is treated by
MITRE in a manner similar to classified information.  However the
source selection process--in general--is public knowledge.  Any
inferences about the way other FFRDCs operate are just that,
inferences.  And although everything said above is public
knowledge, any discrepancies between what is said and official
government or MITRE policy is accidental, unintentional, and not
reflective of any change in policy.  Whew!)


--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...