[mr_toad]

It’s not just the ability to sue. It’s partly just the labyrinthine government procurement process that favours larger suppliers who can deal with all the red tape.

There is also an element of cargo-culting in government procurement, where they think that if all the proper rituals are being observed they must lead to the right result.

It probably works well when procuring janitorial services, but with IT it just helps cement lock-in.

[Someguywhatever]

Yes this is very true, and most people procuring IT services in Gov't probably don't understand what they're asking for. They think a static web page costs a lot of money or is difficult to implement because they're technologically illiterate. Meanwhile IBM implements that static web page for them for a million taxpayer dollars.....