Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
 > >>>>> "Brian" == Brian J Fox <bfox@ua.com> writes:
 > 
 >     Brian> The agency perceives that you are only interested in the
 >     Brian> *technical* solution to the agency's problem. They can't
 >     Brian> live with that.  They need someone who is interested in
 >     Brian> them *as a customer*, not as a problem to be solved.
 > 
 > So they contract with a _broker_ who subcontracts to a vaporware
 > vendor who subcontracts to Russ?  Something's wrong with this picture.

No, I think we've got a CYA action here.  I think someone at the TLA
had an idea that they wanted to use qmail, and wanted a CYA vendor.
That's why I kept getting pumped for technical answers.  "Is there
some documentation which explains why this is going to work."  And as
a consequence, they didn't need to worry about picking the best vendor 
(me), but instead the cheapest credible vendor, who would have gotten
the job except that they asked for incredible terms.

To make it more interesting, the TLA wants to start on *Monday*, but
they're not jumping at the chance to get me even though their previous 
vendor just crapped out on them.  I've already warned them that my
price is going up by $1K at 5PM today.  I think it's going to go up
another $1K on Thursday if the decision hasn't been made by then.  And 
another and another.

-- 
-russ nelson              http://russnelson.com | Crypto without a threat
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