Cyberattacks are hitting water and wastewater systems “throughout the United States” and state governments and water facilities must improve their defenses against the threat, the White House and Environmental Protection Agency warned US governors on Tuesday.
It’s the lowest qualified bidder. What qualified means varies a lot. Qualified can mean that it is literally has to have the trademark of a certain company on the machine/system (yes I have seen this spec). Qualified could mean a set of criteria so specific that no one could reasonably come close to it except one or two companies. Qualified could mean a rigid set of business criteria (must be based with x distance away, must have been doing y for a set amount of years) that only one company fits it. Plus there is always blacklisting. Mess up enough and you aren’t getting work there for a decade. The governments are not powerless in who they hire.
Added to this there is usually a general contractor who outsources most of the work. They have a lot of power in who they want. Plus there are competitive specs which are fun to write. Did you company secretly invest 6 months into making a new feature? Get the new feature added to the spec and make sure they lose business for a while playing catch-up.
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It is not just that, they also pay IT staff below market rate so they don’t get the best people.
It’s the lowest qualified bidder. What qualified means varies a lot. Qualified can mean that it is literally has to have the trademark of a certain company on the machine/system (yes I have seen this spec). Qualified could mean a set of criteria so specific that no one could reasonably come close to it except one or two companies. Qualified could mean a rigid set of business criteria (must be based with x distance away, must have been doing y for a set amount of years) that only one company fits it. Plus there is always blacklisting. Mess up enough and you aren’t getting work there for a decade. The governments are not powerless in who they hire.
Added to this there is usually a general contractor who outsources most of the work. They have a lot of power in who they want. Plus there are competitive specs which are fun to write. Did you company secretly invest 6 months into making a new feature? Get the new feature added to the spec and make sure they lose business for a while playing catch-up.