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At 12:23 PM -0500 10/10/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>This isn't new news. Both are done. One
>gathers opinions and contracts. Remember,
>contracting is a formal process because of
>protests. If one does things promiscuously,
>the bid results are protested. Protests are
>expensive for the contracting parties and
>can result in rebids. Now all of that money
>spent on process is lost and one has to start
>over in some cases. In any case, the only
>benefits go to the lawyers.
>
I'm familiar with this scenario in the government. In fact, there
it's routine. However, it does not match my experience of small
private enterprises. In particular, whenever a company I worked for
collected bids, it felt free to rule out the lowest bid for any
reason ranging from they didn't trust the company with the lowest bid
to the coincidence that the highest bid was submitted by the CEO's
fraternity brother. The bidders took their lumps and moved on.
Is it different in the world of large, litigious corporations you
seem to work in? For example, if Intergraph put out bids for long
distance service to MCI, AT&T and Sprint, and eventually chose AT&T,
would MCI or Sprint be likely to protest the result? I know that when
the federal government puts out bids, such companies routinely
protest and even sue when they lose, but I was under the impression
the private sector was a little different; and that most people
realized that whether they lost the bid fairly or unfairly, they
1. Had no right to sue over it.
2. Realized if they did sue, they'd never get any business from that
company again.
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| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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