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.
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