Currently, the State of Maryland and the City of Boston, Massachusetts have Request for Proposals (RFPs) on the street for Computer Aided Dispatch and Records Management Systems. Both projects are very large in scope and will include multi-million dollar contracts for vendors and subcontractors. Given their size, I thought it would be interesting to compare the list of vendors who attended the pre-proposal conferences for both of these projects.

First, the vendors who attended the pre-proposal conference for the State of Maryland CAD/RMS RFP include: Gantech, NetApp, SONA Networks, ARINC, CapWIN, Morcom, ACS, Communications Electronics, Trilogy, Frequentis, Young Enterprise Systems, Oracle, Denali Solutions, TriTech, Ciber, DataWorks Plus, FDM Software, Tiburon, Intergraph, Unisys, Capegemini, InterAct Public Safety Systems, Telecommunications Development Group, Bio-Key, Verizon Business, Cisco, and Motorola.

Secondly, the vendors who attended the pre-proposal conference for the Boston, MA CAD/RMS RFP include: ACS, Brandon Associates LLC, Capgemini Government Solutions, Comtronics, Datamaxx, Denali Solutions, ESRI, Galain Solutions, GovCentric, IBM, ICA Consulting LLC, Interact Public Safety Systems, Intergraph, Motorola, New World Systems, Northrop Grumman, Tiburon, TriTech Software Systems, Verizon Business, and Versaterm.

Looking at the two lists, it is clear that these two projects are popular among the big names in the CAD/RMS market. Northrop Grumman currently holds the CAD contract for the City of Boston, so it could be tough for vendors to compete with the incumbent contractor. As for the State of Maryland, it is really up in the air as far as who has the advantage given that this is a totally new endeavor for the state and involves multiple departments. More information and updates can be found within these two opportunity reports.