A much tougher problem is the skillfully wired RFP, where it is wired in a manner that is invisible. Historically, some of the best-known mainframe manufacturers have often been able to wire a lot of RFPs. We saw Walter Reed hospital wire a $25 million RFP for one of these manufacturers. We have no clue as to whether or not the manufacturer assisted the Army in doing so.

Walter Reed tuned the benchmark exactly to a particular sized machine offered by the desired manufacturer, and everyone else was either larger or smaller. Very clever.

We saw another Government group hire a firm to convert their code from CDC to IBM even though CDC was the incumbent. IBM won that bid, which was also for an Army contract. Usually, agency policy people and oversight people never know or never want to know that these things occur.