Helixstorm, Inc.

29975 Technology Drive, Suite 101 | Murrieta, California 92563

Main: 888-434-3549 | Fax: 270-458-7951 | helixstorm.com

January 12, 2012

City College of San Francisco

Attention: Dr. David Hotchkiss

50 Phelan Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94112

(415) 452-5170

Dr. Hotchkiss:

Thank you for extending Helixstorm, Inc. the opportunity to participate in the RFP bid process for the

colleges’ zero client virtual desktop project at the new china town campus. Please let this letter formally

serve as Helixstorm contesting our loss to the bid.

We have significant reason to believe Helixstorm was at an unfair disadvantage against other competing

vendors.

Helixstorm is contesting for the following reasons:

We believe the winning vendor misrepresented and falsified the number of “Pano Logic” and

“Unidesk” specific implementations performed.

CCSF staff changed the requirements of the RFP on November 21st, 2011 without notifying

Helixstorm of the official changes.

Of the vendors that submitted a bid for the RFP, Helixstorm has the most design, configuration,

implementation, and support experience specifically with HP, VMware, Pano Logic, and Unidesk.

It is our understanding that Doug Re changed the RFP requirements on November 21st and only updated

a single vendor to revise their bid and intentionally withheld the requirement change from other bidders.

The Requirements that changed:

Add redundant onboard administrator

Add ICE licenses to the chassis

Upgrade from c3000 to c7000 blade chassis

Added 300 Ethernet data cables to provide network connectivity to Pano devices

Changed switch backplane cables

The above changes were our recommendations and were already included in our initial bid (with the

exception of the switch cables). We also recommended upgrading from an HP c3000 blade chassis to a

c7000 blade chassis for future scalability.

This project had the attention of CCSF’s executive office. This was a very high profile project and its

success would help shape the future of desktop computing within CCSF student and faculty campus.

Helixstorm, Inc.

29975 Technology Drive, Suite 101 | Murrieta, California 92563

Main: 888-434-3549 | Fax: 270-458-7951 | helixstorm.com

Given the scale, technology, and visibility of the project, the level of attention from some members of the

IT staff concerned me.

Tim Ryan seemed disconnected and disinterested from the project meetings. He sat on the far left corner

of the table and worked heads down on his laptop throughout the course of the meeting and provided little

feedback or participation when questions were asked. We felt he wasn't interested in learning about the

solution we proposed nor did he treat the criticality of the project seriously.

We also learned the incumbent vendor had already won this opportunity before the RFP was publicly

released. In my opinion, Helixstorm was never on a level playing field to have the opportunity to win this

project.

This further validates that members of CCSF staff were being selective as they distributed information to

a single vendor that ultimately resulted in an unfair advantage for Helixstorm, which ultimately resulted in

losing the bid. I firmly believe we are the right partner for this project. We have the experience that can be

validated from the manufacturers involved, along with the engineering and professional services to make

the project successful.

Sincerely,

Aaron Schneider

Principal

Helixstorm, Inc.

aaron.schneider@helixstorm.com

888-434-3549 x301