

CIA faulted for choosing Amazon cloud over IBM - brokenparser
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/it-pro/cloud/cia-faulted-for-choosing-amazon-cloud-over-ibm-20130620-2okb7.html

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8ig8
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" ;)

Edit: Sorry, couldn't resist. Here's a little more meat for the comment:
[http://corporatevisions.com/blog/2007/06/11/no-one-ever-
got-...](http://corporatevisions.com/blog/2007/06/11/no-one-ever-got-fired-
for-buying-ibm/)

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inzax
This has nothing to do with prices or wrongful chosen clouds. This has
everything to do with Amazon encroaching on IBMs old business with the
government.

Boeing did the same thing and used the same excuse when they didn't want
Airbus coming into the United States and encroaching on its territory.

Mark my works. IBM will win because they have deep pockets with the
politicians. That's who will decide this fate, not the CIA.

Humble ex employee of Northrop Grumman on the front line of the Airbus
situation.

~~~
Already__Taken
Wait what's going on with the airbus situation?

It sounds analogous to what spaceX will be up against in some coming years
with US and European space companies / governments.

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ceautery
Yeah, seriously. If IBM is good at one thing, it's selling solutions to
entities antagonistic to their citizens [1].

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_during_World_War_II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_during_World_War_II)

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fennecfoxen
Yeah, if anyone at GAO should happen to ask, I'd pick Amazon over IBM for a
cloud solution on technical merits too.

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daven11
For those who don't live in Brisbane. The brisbane times is a free paper put
in peoples letter boxes, best known for it's local restaurant reviews and
fashion. I wouldn't take it's views on overseas IT procurement very seriously
:-)

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Zikes
If the price is the primary sticking point in this, I don't see why it's an
issue. Clearly there are several more factors involved in this project,
otherwise I could step in and quote $1m less than IBM and be considered
equally viable.

~~~
calbear81
Actually, I believe this is how many public entities award contracts. My
friend worked for the parks department in a major US city and when they needed
to build something, the lowest bidder got the contract automatically as long
as they were qualified/approved regardless of whether or not they were as
competent as other vendors.

~~~
gohrt
Right, and the procurers write the contract to require features that are oddly
specific to the preferred vendor's operation, to avoid undercuts by
competitors.

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malandrew
Even if the Amazon service was more expensive, there is more to choosing a
service than price. Assuming Amazon's service is a carbon copy clone of their
AWS services, then the decision is a no brain so long as the prices are at
least in the same ballpark. AFAICT IBM is going to create a custom solution
for the USG, which carries much greater operational risk relative to a clone
of AWS. Furthermore, all the community, tutorials and open source software
that already exists in the AWS ecosystem is a massive asset that is very
difficult to price a a major contributor to the value Amazon will provide the
USG.

