GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) by Nikolaus Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

service was truly global, crossing all natural borders worldwide .
    Likewise , government buyers would interrogate this common database using the same system or suite of internet applications. These applications would then ask certain supplier companies to “Express an Interest” in various buyer contracts , depending on what kind of tenders were on the offering. The buyer and suppliers wer e presented with their own dedicated portal interfaces , al though the underlying database was the same .
    Ilario Holdings was the parent company of a small software company called Ventisei Software Solutions Ltd , which specializ ed in electronic tendering , known glibly as “e-tendering”. The Managing Director of Ventisei, a tough business woman named Nina Ventisei, had for her sole purpose the develop ment and provision of these services . T he tendering software suite used was called “ The Crypt . ”
    Based in Scotland , “The Crypt” and all other such applications had been aggressively purchased from a local family business and now was wholly owned by Ilario Holdings. This left no -one to provision a competitive e-tendering service in all of Europe . T he transition of the software from family business to Ilario Holdings was seamless and went completely unnoticed by the European press and government .
    “ The Crypt ” provided suppliers with two levels of certification — self - certified and accredited. On accessing an application, suppliers would complete a certif ied Proforma , detailing the key information normally requested by public sector b uyers when seeking requests for “ Expressions of Interest ” in a particular tender . These forms were normally very secure. “The Crypt” was then used to exchange important and sensitive tender documents using the latest security encryption technologies. Governments and suppliers alike would ignore all pre-qualification documents , as part of earlier qualification processes. In the post tender negotiations between the government and supplying companies, key principles would be conducted within the scope of the European Community procurement directives.
    In both open and restricted tender procedures , all negotiation with candidates or suppliers on fundamental aspects of contracts, on variations that would likely distort the competition, and on prices w as completely ruled out . T hat basic principal was often overlooked by government bodies , which overlooked the fundamental flaw in the morality of private company ownership of the databases .
    Yes, “The Crypt” was a perfect tool! It was an e asy way to navigate the complex world of e-tender processes, where law suits waited around every corner for the poor council officer s and central government official s whose main responsibilit ies w ere to feed their famil ies and keep a mortgage . O h yes, for both central and local governments , “T he Crypt ” was a real money saver , or so it appeared.
    Don Luzio Ilario had captured a lucrative end of the software market, and his company act ed as a middleman by providing essential electronic tendering software tools in order to exchange confidential documents. He’d already fulfilled contracts for the warship R & D Support to Modify a Northrop Grumman AN/APN-241 radar system to develop an Anti Ship Missile (ASM ) s imulator and the IRL-Dublin apparatus for measuring radiation . T he t itle attributed to the contract by the contracting authority was: Upgrade of Italian National Radioactivity in Air Monitoring Network.
    The contract that Ilario really wanted to keep a lucrative eye on was the Stingray Intensive Munitions Programme Ltd Insertion , which was a single-source contract for the manufacture of 112 Insensitive Munitions Warhead Systems and the integration of these systems into the Sting Ray Strategic Defense Department. Codenamed A400M , the project aimed to provide tactical and strategic mobility to all three s ervices. The Ministry of Defence required that the