Motorola spends a tremendous amount of money with lobbyists. Why do you think they do that? TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS! This has nothing to do with serving the common good. To the contrary, it has to do ONLY with serving the interests of those who will directly benefit. Almost single handily, Motorola has literally destroyed any hope of true interoperability for public safety by developing proprietary technology to lock out competition. Now tit appears that they are hard at work to derail an open standard nationwide public safety broadband data network..
Fortunately, some of their large customers are waking up and saying enough. Mississippi is leading the charge. You really need to take a few minutes to see just how far a company can go to protect their interests. Be sure and read not only the article, but the links as well by clicking here.
And, in spite of all this, we still deal with prospective customers who spend taxpayer money on a sole source supplier, totally ignoring bid laws, free and fair competition, or even plain common sense. We experienced such a situation just this week where a Sheriff discounted the recommendations of his staff, and ignored the fact that an alternate supplier had performed tests exceeding the user expectations. The response by the Sheriff was to request pricing from Motorola which was significantly higher than that submitted by the one who did all the work.
It now appears that the Sheriff intends to purchase Motorola because HE likes Motorola. I hope he likes them enough to go to jail because that is exactly what could and should happen to those who abuse their power, waste taxpayer money, and ignore the law. It only takes a few concerned citizens to stop this kind of foolishness. Please join us in our campaign to restore responsible spending of public funds. The benefits will be worth the effort. Mississippi has shown it can be done!
