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The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

gun.io

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Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#11

Post by gte910h »

The problem with the government trying to do something is that anyone who's really really qualified will find the paperwork, compliance, and bidding procedures way too complicated for the sums of money involved.

The Android app cost 106k btw. So looking at this guys hourly rate, it would take approximately 6 months of 40 hour weeks for him to cost that much to do the app.

So if he:

Learned out to submit the forms that got him into the bidding

Made changes to his company required to make it seem a valid bid target

Filed the correct forms to put in his bid

Factored in correctly the amount of oversight and travel that would be required to get even a simple app done according to the whims of the people hired to get it made

Used server technologies compliant with government desires, including ones he may never really willingly touch with a 10 foot pole

Then MAYBE, just MAYBE, he'd be able to go as low as say, 60k or so. And that's for a small indie dev. Now look at a bigger company doing this app (as the government likes support, unlike a single freelancer can necessarily provide), and you easily hit the 106k range.

Does it not work well? Sounds like it works like crap. But complicated crap still can be expensive to make.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#12

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

In the government agency where I work, $200k would actually be considered very reasonable for a steaming pile of shit. We've paid many times that amount and sometimes the shit wasn't even lukewarm, let alone steaming. Believe it or not, we often spend $150 to $200k or more just to make the decision about whether or not we're going to invest in a particular pile of shit.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#13

Post by tomjen3 »

davedx wrote: post #2

The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!

That is an easy problem to get around - make the bidding for 30 day coding with an option to have in extended for another 30 days until the government is no longer happy with the progress.

Then do it Scrum style.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#14

Post by maxharris »

How does this further the proper mission of the government, which is to protect individual rights?

I can't fathom a way that this could have anything to do with the government doing the one essential job it actually has to do! It's not just that it's a badly made app. I think the entire fact that the government making apps like this is absurd.

Given what the government actually is (the only agency with the legitimate, legal monopoly on the use of force), it is no wonder that it fails so miserably at doing stuff like this.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#15

Post by mousa »

davedx wrote: post #2

The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!

Probably the whole process of bidding for any of these reduces the pool of potential contractors to a couple of these giant government contractors who have bidding down.

I know there are bidding procedures for everything to fight corruption but for little projects like this they should come up with a procedure to use odesk or similar services.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#16

Post by pavlov »

In the European Union, governments are legally required to open public works and supplying contracts to competition through an open tendering process. I'm surprised that this doesn't happen in the US.

There's a fair bit of criticism levelled against the EU tendering processes, though. Many feel that the process emphasizes price at the expense of quality, resulting in a "race to the bottom" as another poster mentioned.

Public contracts currently open in the EU can be found on a website: http://ted.europa.eu

Looking quickly through the site, the contracts seem to have a huge range -- everything from large architectural projects to supplying a small Swedish town with photocopier paper...

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#17

Post by aresant »

Outstanding piece of marketing on Gun.io's part with a clear "here's how my biz solves this" at the end.

#1 on Hacker News is a feat, but this thing has legs on every political and general fluff channel - HuffPo, FoxNews, Conservative Radio, CNN, wire services, etc.

I learned from our own blogging efforts when you have a winner, take it to the bank.

EG - Hit every PR angle you can think of to get redistribution while you've got the momentum.

Any PR gurus out there that would comment on the top handful of ways to fan the flames on PR for a story like this?

I'd love to understand the process when you've got this ripe of content.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#18

Post by thirsteh »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #12

In the government agency where I work, $200k would actually be considered very reasonable for a steaming pile of shit. We've paid many times that amount and sometimes the shit wasn't even lukewarm, let alone steaming. Believe it or not, we often spend $150 to $200k or more just to make the decision about whether or not we're going to invest in a particular pile of shit.

This is double-plus not good.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#19

Post by gte910h »

mquander wrote: post #6
davedx wrote: post #2

The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!

Isn't a race to the bottom on price the desired outcome? The presence of a race to the bottom on functionality is independent of whether or not the contract is open. If they don't have anyone competent who is vetting the proposals or evaluating the progress and deliverables, then they will wind up with shit no matter how they arrange the contracting. But if it's open to normal software shops, then at least they proba…

>Isn't a race to the bottom on price the desired outcome

Cheap yet sufficient is the desired outcome in government work.

I'm guessing 'sufficient' was defined too broadly or too specifically, and therefore was not correctly tested for on delivery.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#20

Post by bambax »

_ea1k wrote: post #3

I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.

Yes. Doing business with the Government means you have to spend endless hours in meetings and produce endless piles of paperwork. In small projects such as this one, overhead is probably around 90% of total cost.

Incidentally, that's why auctioning small pieces of a larger project independently is probably not a good idea. Costs could in fact skyrocket: each part would have its own contract, negotiation process, meetings, forms, etc.

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