Still the problem is that when Lockheed Martin rolls in with a $350million bid, Boeing comes in with a $365 million bid, and Joe Schmoe's Web Shop shows up with

Still the problem is that when Lockheed Martin rolls in with a $350million bid, Boeing comes in with a $365 million bid, and Joe Schmoe's Web Shop shows up with a $450k bid, they dismiss Joe Schmoe as trivially worthless despite the fact he's got low overhead, had built systems exactly like what they need, and could do it quickly. LM and Boeing, on the other hand, are bumbling fools, giant towering piles of middle managers and upper managers and the worst examples of bureaucracy you'll ever face. The kind of people who if faced with a situation where the company has already been paid but the work location is going to get shut down for a day they will try to trick workers into taking their own vacation time to cover it, simply conveniently not mentioning that the time will be paid anyway. Sure you could just be decent, but if there's a chance to gouge, GOUGE AWAY. But they look 'respectable'. I've seen a billion-dollar contract where they found an off-the-shelf product that did exactly what they wanted... so they bought it, gutted it, and rebuilt it more terrible than ever in order to justify the expense. I've been on one side saying 'you guys will mess it up, just let us develop the new version' and been told 'you can do it... but you still have to pay US for writing it. Because that's part of the contract we won and we'll sue you to death otherwise.'