...On a local federal job by the US General Services Administration, specs call for the Latest Version of Primavera Project Planner P3, we just heard is no longer available for sale by Primavera/Oracle. By the same token Primavera SureTrak is no longer available for sale by Primavera/Oracle.
...Primavera/Oracle supports their Enterprise line through Primavera Project Manager P6, an expensive product, full of bugs that they do either upgrade to newer versions or provide service packs every other month in order to get rid of a few bugs at a time. This software is geared toward the Enterprise who handles hundreds of projects at the same time, sharing resources among them, with maybe a hundred people gaining access to a single monstrous database at the same time. Yes it can be deployed as a single user application on a laptop PC but what about its bugs, what about it’s every other month fixes. This would be overkill for jobs with less than 100,000 activities. The companion products Primavera Contractor and Contractor Deluxe are a joke, not only limited from 700 to 2,000 activities but neither can do resource constraining even when the schedule can be resource loaded. I believe neither of these support Project Groups.
...In the spirit of free choice we may be asking the contracting officer to please let the contractor keep control of the schedule with the software of his choice, otherwise it might end not being his schedule. We believe specs should not call for what is no longer available.
...Is it legal, is it fair that the federal government procure bids specifiying only one supplier without even providing a single other option? If a government agency decides that they want to go along with a name brand specification, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires a written justification. FAR 11.1.05 states, “agency requirements shall not be written so as to require a particular brand name, product, or feature of a product, particular to one manufacturer, thereby precluding consideration of a product manufactured by another company…” The only allowance to this rule is to provide written justification that the “particular brand name, product or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements, and a market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs.”
...Please provide us with a few arguments in support of our request, in case my client goes ahead with the RFI. Will keep you informed if so, in either case your argumentes will be welcome for future reference.
Thank you all in advance,
Rafael Davila
...Primavera/Oracle supports their Enterprise line through Primavera Project Manager P6, an expensive product, full of bugs that they do either upgrade to newer versions or provide service packs every other month in order to get rid of a few bugs at a time. This software is geared toward the Enterprise who handles hundreds of projects at the same time, sharing resources among them, with maybe a hundred people gaining access to a single monstrous database at the same time. Yes it can be deployed as a single user application on a laptop PC but what about its bugs, what about it’s every other month fixes. This would be overkill for jobs with less than 100,000 activities. The companion products Primavera Contractor and Contractor Deluxe are a joke, not only limited from 700 to 2,000 activities but neither can do resource constraining even when the schedule can be resource loaded. I believe neither of these support Project Groups.
...In the spirit of free choice we may be asking the contracting officer to please let the contractor keep control of the schedule with the software of his choice, otherwise it might end not being his schedule. We believe specs should not call for what is no longer available.
...Is it legal, is it fair that the federal government procure bids specifiying only one supplier without even providing a single other option? If a government agency decides that they want to go along with a name brand specification, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires a written justification. FAR 11.1.05 states, “agency requirements shall not be written so as to require a particular brand name, product, or feature of a product, particular to one manufacturer, thereby precluding consideration of a product manufactured by another company…” The only allowance to this rule is to provide written justification that the “particular brand name, product or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements, and a market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs.”
...Please provide us with a few arguments in support of our request, in case my client goes ahead with the RFI. Will keep you informed if so, in either case your argumentes will be welcome for future reference.
Thank you all in advance,
Rafael Davila