[bbarthel]

This is actually a perfectly legitimate practice - there are various regulations that govern these types of single-vendor/single-product requests. Usually you have to show (based on an analysis of currently available solutions) that no product except the one named could possibly meet your requirements.

In this case, it appears that the DOI actually followed those rules and came to the conclusion that only MS could provide a working solution. Google is essentially saying in the complaint that

a) Their solution meets the stated requirements and the DOI knew about it.

b) It is unclear if Microsoft's solution even meets all the requirements (specifically the security requirements since Microsoft is not currently FISMA compliant and has a bunch of known problems in its exchange server)

therefore the justification for naming Microsoft's solution is invalid and solutions involving Google's product should have been allowed for consideration.

Since I didn't actually read the DOI justification (only Google's summary of it) and I am not familiar enough with the specific regulations that govern this sort of thing to comment on its validity, I simply wanted to point out that "naming the winner" in the RFQ is not enough to invalidate it and is not necessarily a problem if the proper research has been done.

[bshep]

IANAL and I didnt read the DOI paper, but as I think you are mostly right.

I think the DOI can require that a solution must be compatible with or have the same features as Microsoft's solution.

However, they cannot say the solution MUST be the Microsoft product, and I think that is what Google is arguing.