Palantir and the US Army: Procurement Thrills
July 6, 2016
I read “Palantir Takes Fight with Army to Federal Court.” The write up is quite useful because the reporter Jen Judson was able to glean some information from a document related to the Palantir versus US Army matter. When I looked for the document, it seemed to me that the complaint had been sealed. I learned from the article:
Palantir is arguing the way the Army wrote its requirements in a request for proposals to industry would shut out Silicon Valley companies that provide commercially available products. The company contended that the Army’s plan to award just one contract to a lead systems integrator means commercially available solutions would have to be excluded.
The Defense News story included some interesting factoids. Here are three I noted:
- Palantir perceives the US Army acting in what is described as an “irrational” way.
- The program for a database, analytics, and visualization tools has consumed billions of dollars and is a development project, not a commercial off the shelf deal.
- Some Army personnel requested Palantir’s software and found the request denied.
Let’s assume that the Army is trying to build a solution which delivers what Palantir Gotham offers as ready-to-roll system listed on the GSA schedule like photocopying machines.
The questions that rose from my addled goose brain were:
- Why is the Army reluctant to use commercial-off-the-shelf software? My narrow experience with government procurement suggests that there is some other factor or factors making the coding of a system from ground zero or cranking out scripts to hook existing systems together more attractive than buying something that pretty much works.
- Why is Palantir unable to play procurement ball with the other major defense contracting companies? Is there a trust issue in play? Palantir was caught in a sticky wicket with i2 Group over the Analyst’s Notebook file format. As a former adviser to i2 before it became part of IBM, I know that the file format was a bit of information Mike Hunter and his colleagues treated as a close hold.
- What issues do the major vendors involved in the Army’s program have with Palantir’s business methods? Most government centric vendors generally get along and take a live-and-let-live approach to big projects. If vendors are not willing to play in the same sandbox, some bad vibes exist for some reason.
Unfortunately I don’t have answers to these questions. My view is that tackling the US Army and procurement methods is likely to cause some consternation for folks involved in the statement of work, the procurement, and the legal machinations.
Plus, the procurement guidelines and the actual procurement processes are often complex and somewhat flexible. As a result, when a commercial company lets the legal eagles fly, the US government has some wiggle room.
Finally, this Palantir versus the Army strikes me as a reprise of Google’s grousing about its not winning the search project for the original version of USA.gov. Big Silicon Valley companies make assumptions. For example, Google tossed around the term rational and the word logical as I recall. The problem is that trust, fear, and revenue may not fit into a Venn diagram or a numerical recipe.
Will Silicon Valley triumph over the so called Beltway Bandits? Will Silicon Valley rationality emerge victorious in the joust with the Army? Stay tuned for the outcome unless the resolution is sealed just like the ANB file format once was.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2016
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