[plug] Word97 vs Openoffice

[Bernd Felsche]

On Saturday 28 August 2004 17:20, Shayne O'Neill wrote:
> Maybe I've done far too many tenders.

> But 250 page tender responses are pretty standard fare in my old job.

> *hint
> 1) govt tenders
> 2) boilerplates.

Boilerplates are *evil*. They only serve to "bulk-up" documents with
mostly-useless gumph. They're OK for the standard, 97-page
disclaimer printed in three-quarter fly-speck.

> Yeah. 25k jobs, unless the other bugger writes a better tender response.

$25,000 is lost opportunity cost expended in drafting the proposal.
It's the money you could earn if somebody were paying for your time.

The last time I wrote something of similar size, it was plagiarised
as their specification for the project. 3 months of work... "donated"
to the government; despite the Copyright notice on each and every
page. And the tender was won by a foreign company.

It's the last time I will ever put a detailed proposal in to a
government department or authority; nor a large company. Now they
only get hand-waving, buzz-words and feel-good mantra. They can opt
to *pay* for my time as a constultant if they want something of
value.

Regretably; one doesn't win tenders on technical merit.

-- 
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