Tuesday, July 18, 2006
China Expert Technology (CXTI) Nan'an contract
CXTI just posted this contract with Nan'an City Administrative Electronic Information Management Company Ltd. This is Phase 2. Here's the Shishi contract for comparison.
Starts on Aug 15, 2006. 12 month duration. Like Shishi, the city appoints a supervisor, CXTI appoints a site manager. Quarterly progress reports (Shishi was monthly, but the contracts are somewhat apples and oranges). Daily inspection (ugh! the trick is to bore them to death so they only show up weekly at most).
CXTI submits a technology plan. During installation, testing of each application system. Inspection of the system within 3 business days of completion. 10 days of trial run, then the city has 3 days to submit changes. CXTI has another 10 days to implement. CXTI transfers the project to the city within 5 working days after passing a check.
There's that one year warranty that I worry about in terms of people/money cost. 4 hours notice to get a repair person on site with spare parts or the city does it themselves and charges CXTI. I see costs here. First 30 days has a techie on site full-time [eating donuts and telling jokes, no doubt].
Any 48 hour downtime during the warranty period and CXTI provides backup equipment. There's the usual waiver for stuff caused by the city. The city intends to sign a maintenance contract with CXTI after the warranty period.
Feature creep by the city is negotiated with arbitration, if needed. CXTI assumes all salary and equipment cost risks.
5% of the contract price is reserved for ensuring warranty, service, training, etc.
The city pays CXTI 50% of the total amount within 5 days of signing the contract. Sounds great, but it's similar to the Shishi contract, from what I can quickly tell.
Within 10 days after completed install and test, the city pays CXTI another 20%. Another 25% after passing the check. Then later 10 days after the warranty period they get the remaining 5%.
Acts of God (forces majeure) are borne by the city (except for equpment damage project suspension costs borne by CXTI), with CXTI taking all possible measures to reduce loss. Much like the Shishi contract.
CXTI is liable for:
The city's liabilities:
Disputes go to friendly consultation, then arbitration or the courts.
The city can examine the qualifications of sub-contractors and suppliers.
Social Security and Insurance Systems: 27% of the total contract price
One-Card Communication System: 25%
E-government Application Expansion System (hey because governments always expand): 48%
They have an itemized list of equipment, which is interesting. The biggest items are two "Intel 550T switchboard" units. These are high-reliability ethernet switches/routers with 2 expansion slots. The "T" version CXTI has selected is for mixed bandwidth environments. Hehe. I worked on a network switch many, many years ago that did a lot of work in the area of mixed traffic and managing various Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements in high-reliability applications. It was a great opportunity to work with some amazing people who went on to great things.
Another item on the list are two ES500MSXSST expansion modules.
There's also a Cisco PIX-515UR firewall. CXTI shows a unit price of around $10K. The website I linked to is maybe half that. Given the liabilities CXTI is taking on, and that it's not the Chinese version, this doesn't seem unreasonable.
They show a Cisco 3640 router for around $26K. Here's a used one for around $4K.
Hehe. They're also buying 28 56K modem modules for something (a router? a headend server?).
A bunch of servers at $46K each. Another bunch of servers at $16K each. A hard drive at around $1,000 (presumably a RAID system).
And, hey, they're buying Windows 2000 Advanced Server OS for around $9K each, Win2K Server at around $2K each.
A DLT tape library system.
An IBM P670 Notebook system. Withdrawn from the [US?] market. In 2002 they listed for anywhere from $175K to $535K. CXTI's price for each is just under $500K.
Medical insurance software. Employment/unemployment insurance software, work-related accident software, and other similar stuff.
I like some of the names of the offices of the city government:
Office of Culture
Warfare Division
Taiwan Affairs office of City (After all, THERE IS ONLY ONE CHINA!!)
The ominous sounding, Disciplinary Supervision Department
And my favorite: Office of Birth Planning of the Directly Related Department
And the enormous "Department of Public Security"
And let's not forget the Communist Youth Party
Ok, I guess I'm done with this. I definitely want to go visit China some time. There's so much to see: the Harbin ice festival, the western hinterlands, the bustling cities like Shanghai, all the cool stuff in Cheng Du, etc. etc.
Starts on Aug 15, 2006. 12 month duration. Like Shishi, the city appoints a supervisor, CXTI appoints a site manager. Quarterly progress reports (Shishi was monthly, but the contracts are somewhat apples and oranges). Daily inspection (ugh! the trick is to bore them to death so they only show up weekly at most).
CXTI submits a technology plan. During installation, testing of each application system. Inspection of the system within 3 business days of completion. 10 days of trial run, then the city has 3 days to submit changes. CXTI has another 10 days to implement. CXTI transfers the project to the city within 5 working days after passing a check.
There's that one year warranty that I worry about in terms of people/money cost. 4 hours notice to get a repair person on site with spare parts or the city does it themselves and charges CXTI. I see costs here. First 30 days has a techie on site full-time [eating donuts and telling jokes, no doubt].
Any 48 hour downtime during the warranty period and CXTI provides backup equipment. There's the usual waiver for stuff caused by the city. The city intends to sign a maintenance contract with CXTI after the warranty period.
Feature creep by the city is negotiated with arbitration, if needed. CXTI assumes all salary and equipment cost risks.
5% of the contract price is reserved for ensuring warranty, service, training, etc.
The city pays CXTI 50% of the total amount within 5 days of signing the contract. Sounds great, but it's similar to the Shishi contract, from what I can quickly tell.
Within 10 days after completed install and test, the city pays CXTI another 20%. Another 25% after passing the check. Then later 10 days after the warranty period they get the remaining 5%.
Acts of God (forces majeure) are borne by the city (except for equpment damage project suspension costs borne by CXTI), with CXTI taking all possible measures to reduce loss. Much like the Shishi contract.
CXTI is liable for:
- Failing to deliver (including sub-contractors, suppliers, etc.)
- Schedule slips: 0.5% of the total contract for each delayed business day up to 20% of the total. More than 150 day slip and CXTI pays it all back plus a 20% extra penalty.
- Failure to deliver any one system results in a repayment of the contract sum for that part plus 10% of the total contract.
- Failure in after-sales support: The city withholds the last 5%.
- Bait and switch: The city can refuse to accept and CXTI is deemed as failing to deliever.
- If CXTI fails the requirements in some other way, the city can terminate the project and demand all the money back plus 20% penalty.
The city's liabilities:
- If a CXTI loss is caused by the city, the city is in breach of contract and bears all relevant costs from it. Schedule delays are simply pushed forward.
- If the city causes goods to be returned, they owe CXTI 20% of the price as a penalty.
- If work can't be completed due to the city or the project supervisor, the city owes CXTI 0.5% per business day delay up to 10% of the total.
- If the city requests equipment replacements for things which meet requirements, no one is at fault but the city pays for appropriate compensation.
- If the city fails to pay on time by the contract, the city will owe some fuzzy negotiated compensation.
Disputes go to friendly consultation, then arbitration or the courts.
The city can examine the qualifications of sub-contractors and suppliers.
Social Security and Insurance Systems: 27% of the total contract price
One-Card Communication System: 25%
E-government Application Expansion System (hey because governments always expand): 48%
They have an itemized list of equipment, which is interesting. The biggest items are two "Intel 550T switchboard" units. These are high-reliability ethernet switches/routers with 2 expansion slots. The "T" version CXTI has selected is for mixed bandwidth environments. Hehe. I worked on a network switch many, many years ago that did a lot of work in the area of mixed traffic and managing various Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements in high-reliability applications. It was a great opportunity to work with some amazing people who went on to great things.
Another item on the list are two ES500MSXSST expansion modules.
1000SX module- Provides a Gigabit Ethernet uplink to individual switches or stacks of switches. It can also be used to link directly to a Gigabit Ethernet Server.They are also installing an Intel 510T, 24-port switch. Their price is $3.5K. Also a 520T.
There's also a Cisco PIX-515UR firewall. CXTI shows a unit price of around $10K. The website I linked to is maybe half that. Given the liabilities CXTI is taking on, and that it's not the Chinese version, this doesn't seem unreasonable.
The Cisco® PIX® 515E Security Appliance delivers enterprise-class security for small-to-medium business and enterprise networks, in a modular, purpose-built appliance. Its versatile one-rack unit (1RU) design supports up to six 10/100 Fast Ethernet interfaces, making it an excellent choice for businesses requiring a cost-effective, resilient security solution with DMZ support. Part of the market-leading Cisco PIX Security Appliance Series, the Cisco PIX 515E Security Appliance provides a wide range of rich integrated security services, hardware VPN acceleration, and powerful remote management capabilities in an easy-to-deploy, high-performance solution.We also have a Cisco 3660 router priced at $35K each. These things can have all sorts of bells and whistles like analog and digital voice, ATM (not the bank teller but the datacom standard), dialup. These aren't the little routers you buy at Circuit City for your home PC. Here are two for sale for around $15K, not sure about the features.
They show a Cisco 3640 router for around $26K. Here's a used one for around $4K.
Hehe. They're also buying 28 56K modem modules for something (a router? a headend server?).
A bunch of servers at $46K each. Another bunch of servers at $16K each. A hard drive at around $1,000 (presumably a RAID system).
And, hey, they're buying Windows 2000 Advanced Server OS for around $9K each, Win2K Server at around $2K each.
A DLT tape library system.
An IBM P670 Notebook system. Withdrawn from the [US?] market. In 2002 they listed for anywhere from $175K to $535K. CXTI's price for each is just under $500K.
Medical insurance software. Employment/unemployment insurance software, work-related accident software, and other similar stuff.
I like some of the names of the offices of the city government:
Office of Culture
Warfare Division
Taiwan Affairs office of City (After all, THERE IS ONLY ONE CHINA!!)
The ominous sounding, Disciplinary Supervision Department
And my favorite: Office of Birth Planning of the Directly Related Department
And the enormous "Department of Public Security"
And let's not forget the Communist Youth Party
Ok, I guess I'm done with this. I definitely want to go visit China some time. There's so much to see: the Harbin ice festival, the western hinterlands, the bustling cities like Shanghai, all the cool stuff in Cheng Du, etc. etc.
// posted by Bruce @ 5:45 PM 
