City scraps Web site plan; will seek new bids - Austin Business Journal:

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City Communications Director Doug Matthews confirmed Thursday that the city is scrappingv the proposal fromSanta Clara, Calif.-based Cignex Technologies Inc. because officials decided the original RFP was too The City Council was set to vote in Marcg to approvethe $704,000 site design contracr with Cignex. However, City Manager Marc Ott delaye d that vote after a public outcr y over the choice of a California vendor instead of anAustin one.
City officials said at the time that the RFP had been reviewed bymany vendors, including local ones, but that only threew companies submitted bids, with Cignex's being the In the initial RFP, the city specifiedd that it wanted a site built on an open-sourcw content management system called Plone. While that systej helps create content-rich it's built on a programmintg language not commonly usedin Austin. Matthews said afte a collaborative review of the plan by himselfc and Chief Information Officer Gail Roper it was determined that such a system might end up beingh more expensive and difficultto maintain. Therefor the city will seek a new round of bids with a lessrestrictivd RFP.
Matthews emphasized that the public outcry over the selection of the Californiaw firm was not the reason forthe city's But he said officials hope that a more broadd RFP will enable a greaterd number of local vendorsz to submit bids this time around. Matthew said the new RFP will likely go out in with a decision on a new vendot hopefully sometimethis fall.