NFP Vendor Partner Programs

The Quilt supports Quilt members and authorized buyers by developing business agreements with vendors who have a comprehensive network delivery infrastructure and are able partner with The Quilt in the delivery and development of our research and education networks throughout the United States.  These types of agreements are divided into two categories;  Selected Vendor Partners, those who have been awarded through the Quilt's RFP process, and Vendor Affiliates Program, for vendors were not selected through an RFP process but provide products or services of interest to a majority if the Quilt community.   Collectively, these vendors meet Quilt member requirements for discounted purchasing, RFP process requirements and account support.  The Quilt seeks vendor partners who not only are able to provide the best value, but also are at the forefront of technology and be willing to work closely with Quilt members to develop and expand that technology beyond a standard provider-customer relationship

1)  NFP Selected Vendor Partner Program

AT&T and Qwest were the selected vendors as a result of the initial 2003 Network Facilities RFP and are our current Quilt vendors.  The Quilt participants today spend much more than $7m annually on maintenance for over $800m of installed Cisco hardware and more than $2m annually on maintenance for over $20m of installed Juniper hardware. We project that this number will remain constant or rise over the upcoming years.

2003 RFP Documents

Network Facilities RFP (MS Word)

2)  Vendor Affiliate Program - Formerly known as Vendor Information Exchange

The Vendor Affiliate Program focuses on establishing relationships with vendors of common interest to the Quilt Participants and Affiliates and who have not participated in a Quilt sponsored RFP process. The group focuses on vendors, or other entities, that provide products or services of interest to a majority of the Quilt community and/or can provide these products or services to or in a geographic area that covers a significant portion of this community. 

The primary goal of this group is to facilitate the exchange of information with the Vendor community, ensuring that this community is kept up to date on the ever changing needs of the Quilt community, thus better able to develop products, services and programs that are consistent with our needs. The Quilt also wants to be kept up to date on what is happening within a vendor's organizations with respect to such things as: new products and services, service definitions, rollouts and corporate information. Two-way information exchange is considered crucial to making this program successful.

Participation Criteria

In order to efficiently and effectively focus our efforts with Vendor Affiliate Partners, we have established a short set of criteria vendors must follow in order to participate in the Affiliate program. Specific criteria include:

• An advocate within the Quilt, specifically someone associated with one of the Quilt Participants that can articulate to the group as a whole the benefits associated with an informal relationship with the specific vendor.
• A brief description of the products, services, or technologies of specific interest to the Quilt Participants. Where appropriate the overlap between the geographic coverage for the services with the Quilt Participants should be indicated as well.

Steps for Participating

Below are some suggested steps for establishing an informal relationship with the Quilt through the Affiliate Program.

• Work through existing contacts among the Quilt participants to find and identify an advocate. A complete listing of the Quilt Participants can be found on the Quilt home page .
• For geographically based services, look at the Quilt PoP locations and indicate what geographic areas you do and do not cover.
• Work with the Quilt advocate to develop a short summary of the specific areas of value and interest between your group and the Quilt.
• Your advocate within the Quilt will then work with you to get this information to the Quilt Steering Committee and Technical representatives. This information will typically be reviewed on a monthly basis, during the Quilt's monthly conference call.
• Contact the Quilt's Program Manager, Jen Leasure (jen@thequilt.net) if you have any questions regarding this process.