From: Liko Agosta <likoa@verviant.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya
To: kiriinya2000@yahoo.com
Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 10:09 AM

Evans ...

We are a services company that provides both Closed Source and Open Source
Consulting to clients ....

We build on what clients have already paid for... 

We can discuss TCO ... 

Liko Agosta, CEO
Verviant Consulting Services. 

www.verviant.com
 
Phone    : 1-919-341-1820
Fax        : 1-978-268-8403
 
Toll Free: 1-866-551-4935
 
Pager: 9193891551@txt.att.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Evans Ikua [mailto:ikua@lpakenya.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 2:48 AM
To: Liko Agosta
Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
Subject: RE: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya

Liko,
There is nothing wrong with the Law. It only needs to be followed. It  
actually has very good intentions of making sure that all (technology)  
suppliers get an equal opportunity to tender for a whatever it is.  
Mind you, once the tenders have been received and opened, the client  
is under no obligation to buy from anyone, not even the lowest price.

Our argument is this; say a ministry wants to buy a SQL DB Server.  
They advertise this without mentioning MS SQL Server anywhere (that's  
what the law says). You quote your SQL Server at KSh 5.6m (you are a  
MS Gold Partner), and I quote my Open Source SQL server at 0.5m (I am  
only selling my services and not licenses). The tendering committee  
now has two options and the guys in IT can defend their choice of  
technology, and the TCO that goes with it, all the way from having to  
buy upgrade licenses a year later or so. Then the decision is made. At  
this point, nobody can come and tell them that they must buy this or  
that, its their decision. Important thing is that the management has  
seen all the options available.

If this law is broken in your favour, I don't expect you to have a  
problem with it. You are happy. No?

It is this that will raise management questions about the cost of  
license upgrades vis a vis the cost of migrating to FOSS products. A  
Ministry would save more by migrating to Scalix than upgrading to MS  
Exchange in the long term. But how does the accounting officer get to  
know this if the IT guy only requests a particular brand name, leaving  
out everyone else? For public institutions that are running on our  
taxes, we want to know that they are spending money prudently. They  
cant be given a blank cheque.


-- 
Evans Ikua
Linux Professional Association of Kenya
Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831
Eagle House, 2nd Floor
Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House
www.lpakenya.org


Quoting Liko Agosta <likoa@verviant.com>:

> Evans,
>
> That law should be changed :)
>
> If a government agency has already invested in some technology stack, they
> should have the right to say they want a solution that ran's on that
> technology stack ....lets says Microsoft SQL Server ..
>
> Why ... The license for SQL server will be a sunk cost at that point and
> getting different technology is making a bigger financial commitment and
> raising project risk .... also .. if the customers programmers/admins know
> C# and SQL Server or Websphere and DB2, the client has the right to pick
> that platform ...
>
> We have ran into this with our clients. Whenever we are doing project
> discovery, we will find out which technologies they currently have/support
> ... if a client has SQL Server, we will typical ask for usage reports for
> that SQL server box and in most cases, we have been able to save money by
> "adding to" their existing infrastructure ... or tuning their
existing
> infrastructure to take more load.
>
> Many organizations we have worked with tend to buy a servers/software
> licenses for each project ... we advice against this and are usually for
> consolidation and better management. That way a 4 CPU license for SQL
Server
> Enterprise Edition (approx USD 80,000) will be apportioned to the 20
systems
> or projects that will use a well tuned 4CPU SQL server ....
>
> So .. good intentions... bad law ... why enforce or spend time on it
>
> My 2 cents
>
> Liko Agosta, CEO
> Verviant Consulting Services.
>
> www.verviant.com
>  Phone    : 1-919-341-1820
> Fax        : 1-978-268-8403
>  Toll Free: 1-866-551-4935
>  Pager: 9193891551@txt.att.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke
> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+likoa=verviant.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf
> Of Evans Ikua
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:34 PM
> To: Liko Agosta
> Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Subject: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya
>
> Interesting what Google can come up with:
>
>
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/052308-kenya-linux-group-challenges-proc
> urement.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
>
>
> We finally got to meet with the PPOA on Friday, 5th September. We had
> a very fruitful discussion on the Public Procurement and Disposal Act
> 2005, whose provisions are being ignored by Government procurement
> agents:
>
> https://ict-innovation.fossfa.net/taxonomy/blog-tags/kenya
>
> This good law stipulates that procuring agents should not mention any
> trade marks, companies or product names when requesting for
> quotations. They are required to just give the specs of what they need
> to accomplish. But how many times do we see these RFQs with brand
> names such as Microsoft *?. This has got to stop and nobody has any
> excuse to break the law with impunity.
>
> We will be putting details of the proceedings on our website soon, and
> also in the media.
>
>
> --
> Evans Ikua
> Linux Professional Association of Kenya
> Tel: +254-20-2250381, Cell: +254-722 955 831
> Eagle House, 2nd Floor
> Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House
> www.lpakenya.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
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