Liko, I do not fully agree with you on this. The client does not need to mention names or trademarks - when/if this is done:- - it amounts to direct marketing or campaign for that trademark, company or whatever - the choice of selecting/getting a superior solution is circumvented since such is only based on past knowledge However, the client must provide sufficient information regarding the existing environment to provide every bidder with same decision making information/tools. I am against organisations selecting solutions/products based on the knowledge of the staff they have rather this should be based on the solution that best fits the organisation. Staff can always be retrained. Rgds SK -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+skisonzo=gmail.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+skisonzo=gmail.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Liko Agosta Sent: 09 September 2008 23:21 To: skisonzo@gmail.com Cc: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke Subject: Re: [kictanet] Software procurement in kenya 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 _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: likoa@verviant.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/likoa%40verviant.com _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: skisonzo@gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/skisonzo%40gmail.com