Bob’s team, described in Exercise 5, has issued its RFP and has received three responses. The team has developed the following evaluation criteria. Price is the most important criterion; the second most important is the extent to which the shopping cart system can be modified; the third most important is the number of features available in the system; fourth is the number of years the vendor has been in business; and fifth is the number of employees the vendor has. For price, the lowest price is best. For modification, more is better, and the same is true of the number of features.

The longer the vendor has been in business, and the more people the vendor employs, the better.

The first proposal, from Three Guys Who Are Programmers Inc. had a licensing cost of US$1,500 per year with unlimited clients and charged US$400 per year for technical assistance.

Bob’s team judged the system from Three Guys to be moderately modifiable, but it had very few features. Three Guys has been in business for two years and currently employs twelve people.

The second proposal, from Global Domination Software Inc. (GDSI), cost US$5,000 per year for a license with unlimited clients, and technical assistance was offered for free as long as there were fewer than twelve requests for assistance. After that, each request cost US$100. Bob’s team found the software to be very limited in terms of the number of modifications that could be made, but it had an incredibly high number of features. GDSI has been in business for twenty-five years and has twenty thousand employees worldwide.

The last proposal was from E-Commerce Associates Inc. (ECA). A one-year license for unlimited clients with free technical assistance cost US$3,000. The software was moderately modifiable and had an average number of e-commerce features. ECA has been in business for ten years and currently has fifty employees.

Which proposal should Bob’s team choose? Which proposal should win? Create a weighting system like the one described in this chapter (use a spreadsheet if you want), and demonstrate which proposal should be chosen.