Attachment 29B
January 12, 2012
City College of San Francisco Attention: Dr. David Hotchkiss 50 Phelan Avenue San Francisco, CA 94112 (415) 452-5170
Dr. Hotchkiss: Thank you for extending Helixstorm, Inc. the opportunity to participate in the RFP bid process for the colleges’ zero client virtual desktop project at the new china town campus. Please let this letter formally serve as Helixstorm contesting our loss to the bid. We have significant reason to believe Helixstorm was at an unfair disadvantage against other competing vendors. Helixstorm is contesting for the following reasons:
We believe the winning vendor misrepresented and falsified the number of “Pano Logic” and “Unidesk” specific implementations performed. st CCSF staff changed the requirements of the RFP on November 21 , 2011 without notifying Helixstorm of the official changes.
Of the vendors that submitted a bid for the RFP, Helixstorm has the most design, configuration, implementation, and support experience specifically with HP, VMware, Pano Logic, and Unidesk. It is our understanding that Doug Re changed the RFP requirements on November 21st and only updated a single vendor to revise their bid and intentionally withheld the requirement change from other bidders. The Requirements that changed:
Add redundant onboard administrator Add ICE licenses to the chassis Upgrade from c3000 to c7000 blade chassis Added 300 Ethernet data cables to provide network connectivity to Pano devices Changed switch backplane cables
The above changes were our recommendations and were already included in our initial bid (with the exception of the switch cables). We also recommended upgrading from an HP c3000 blade chassis to a c7000 blade chassis for future scalability. This project had the attention of CCSF’s executive office. This was a very high profile project and its success would help shape the future of desktop computing within CCSF student and faculty campus.
Helixstorm, Inc. 29975 Technology Drive, Suite 101 | Murrieta, California 92563 Main: 888-434-3549 | Fax: 270-458-7951 | helixstorm.com
Given the scale, technology, and visibility of the project, the level of attention from some members of the IT staff concerned me. Tim Ryan seemed disconnected and disinterested from the project meetings. He sat on the far left corner of the table and worked heads down on his laptop throughout the course of the meeting and provided little feedback or participation when questions were asked. We felt he wasn't interested in learning about the solution we proposed nor did he treat the criticality of the project seriously. We also learned the incumbent vendor had already won this opportunity before the RFP was publicly released. In my opinion, Helixstorm was never on a level playing field to have the opportunity to win this project. This further validates that members of CCSF staff were being selective as they distributed information to a single vendor that ultimately resulted in an unfair advantage for Helixstorm, which ultimately resulted in losing the bid. I firmly believe we are the right partner for this project. We have the experience that can be validated from the manufacturers involved, along with the engineering and professional services to make the project successful.
Sincerely,
Aaron Schneider Principal Helixstorm, Inc. aaron.schneider@helixstorm.com 888-434-3549 x301
Helixstorm, Inc. 29975 Technology Drive, Suite 101 | Murrieta, California 92563 Main: 888-434-3549 | Fax: 270-458-7951 | helixstorm.com