"A 10 month assessment phase will concentrate on defining the system solution reducing risk in preparation for full development, scheduled for 2009."

I've just finished reading Lewis Page's "Lions, Donkeys, and Dinosaurs". I bet anybody any money that full development will not start until 2011, and will finish in 2015, at a total cost two and a half billion pounds, and that the final product will be a limited functionality alpha release that will not work.

"the size of the task should not be underestimated"

I wager that it will be underestimated.

Why do government departments do this? I mean announcing a preferred bidder is like giving an invitation to be overcharged to one company, while simultaneously putting off all the other bidders from really working on their bids.

It should be stopped, they are spunking our money up the wall.

Usual situation for a project like this is a group of companies bid for the job and then there are several preferred bidders who go through to the next stage - in this case the assessment phase.

The title of the article is misleading in that if you actually read it GD have been simply selected through to the next stage. I expect the other preferred bidders will issue press releases soon enough.

Here's how it goes: they don't know exactly what they're asking for, so they sketch out something vaguely, then companies compete to offer increasingly unrealistic bids for the contract.

Howabout this: fixed-price contract, with massive financial penalties for the company if it goes over time/budget. Then see what the bids look like. And the specifications.

EADS have such a wealth of successful projects under their belt there's no way this will be a multi-billion blunder: the NHS system, for example, was an amazing success.

I won't go into more examples as the overuse of sarcasm may start to burn your eyes...

Z

My EDS hatred is blinding me to the extra A.