PORCUPINE ANSWERS ARMY’S FIVE-PAGE REQUEST WITH 214 PAGES, TELLS SAM IT SHOWS RIGOR

September 9, 2026 | Uncategorized

The Army wants commercial software configured and working in months. One firm is still quoting a four-year custom build.

THE SOFTWARE FACTORY. The Army asked for five pages. Quillby sent a binder. He sent it by certified mail.

Quillby the Porcupine has built custom software for the government since 1997. He plans to keep doing exactly that. The Army has other plans.

A July Army directive told program offices to buy commercial products first. Custom development is now supposed to be rare. Quillby read the memo twice. He changed nothing.

Last month a program office ran a commercial solutions opening. It asked for a five-page concept paper. Quillby submitted 214 pages, a compliance matrix, and a cost volume. Nobody asked for a cost volume.

His office is a wall of three-ring binders. Every one of them is a proposal nobody read past page four.

Everything is custom. Every customer is different. Nobody configures a commercial product for the Army in ninety days. My last build took four years. Four good years. Billable years.

Here is the approach you should not copy

Quillby’s advice to other small businesses is to wait it out.

“Policies may change, but binders do not,” he says. “I have seen eleven reform memos. I outlasted nine of them. The other two I ignored on principle.”

The numbers are the problem. A commercial solutions opening starts with a five-page concept paper, not a typical proposal. A former Army deputy CIO told Federal News Network the approach can cut a solicitation from more than a year down to days or weeks. Quillby’s template is 214 pages and it has never been made shorter. However, it was lengthened every time he submitted one.

The directive also tells the Army to buy enterprise-wide from one vendor when a product covers several needs, and Quillby is not that vendor. Nor is he the configuration partner either. He is a four-year builder in a market that now wants ninety days.

He is thorough. The problem is the Army is not asking him to be.

Editor’s Note: Mr. Quillby offered to walk this reporter through his requirements traceability matrix. It runs 400 rows. He said row 12 is where it gets good.

Marjorie Halvers covers the business of selling to SAM for The Less Formal Debriefing. She was handed a binder and asked to return it in person

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