- Sunday, 12 July 2009
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Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm - Malay proverb
Iowa Senator rips investigation by GSA of Sun Microsystems contract
US SENATOR Chuck Grassly said on the US Senate floor that the GSA (government purchasing types) is playing cozy buddy to Sun Microcomputer. Which means other companies don't get their “fair share” of US government computer contracts .
Grassly said: "These investigations have uncovered a disturbing chain of circumstances at GSA. In a nutshell: They indicate top level GSA management interfered in contract negotiations with Sun Microsystems. They put pressure on the contract officer to sign a potentially bad contract; and when he refused, they had that contract officer removed under duress. All the evidence suggests that this particular contractor had been overcharging the government for years. "
Shurley there must be shome mishtake? How could it be that smiling scions of our industry like Jonathan Schwartz and Scott McNealy would be involved in this unseemly dispute ...
A PDF of Sen Grassly speech is here. µ
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Your link is doing weird things to my browser: I had to copy and paste the link, like so:

http://www.federaltimes.com/content/grassley_floor_statement101707.pdf

Anyway, it is quite an indictment, not only of Sun, but of the entire government contracting system, in general. Is it a shocker that NHS spent so much on its multi-billion pound boondoggle?

I know, States vs. England, but there are some aspects of government which cross oceanic lines (I'm looking at you India).

BTW, this speech was made on October 17, 2007. Why are we hearing about it now, and on the inquirer.net?

Good job.
So a contractor gets caught overcharging the government and is replaced and people are going to get in trouble for that ?
Shouldn't the people who have found the leak be rewarded for having saved some of the People's tax money ?
Read it again Pascal.
For readers who find the piece very mysterious - what is SUN accused of, - I can point out that government sales in the US always come with a promise that the vendor is not charging the government any more than it is charging any commericial purchaser for the same product. In the case of computers the vendor has some, but not too much leeway in claiming that products are different based minor differences. There is obviously scope for disagreement as to how much difference is enough. If you look at the SUN catalog, there are usually many obsolete items at very high prices - these are for government purchasers. The modern computers with the same function are considered different enough not to trigger the lowest commercial price clause, at least by SUN.
In the meantime a dozen government employee's waste tax payer money sitting on hands waiting for a computer.
Wanna bet Senator Grassly wants Microsoft to get it's "fair share" instead of Sun. Looks like noble intent but may just as easily be a setup by an MS paid shill in the Senate.

Maybe I'm too cynical... Naw, Grassly on somebody else's payroll. You know it's true. Let somebody look into Grassly's campaign contributors and it's gonna be IBM or MS in the top 10 and Sun not there at all.