At the July 9 ARDG meeting, the ARDG co-chairs let slip a couple more veils, teasing us with a bit more about the shape of the final ARDG report. There’s also a timetable.
The vast majority of the meeting was spent dickering over the precise working of various questions in the “analysis matrix.” (For more about what this “matrix” is all about, read the entry prior to this one.) The ARDG co-chairs do not want the matrix published until it is finalized. Imagine roughly 30 or 40 questions like this one:
9.2 Are the contractual requirements affecting the technical aspects of the proposal, if any, completely described a priori in non-confidential documents?
The ARDG co-chairs hope to complete the matrix and invite responses from vendors by early August. Vendors will be invited to respond in writing by September 15 and invited to attend and answer questions at the October 1 ARDG meeting in Washington DC.
So, what will the Final Report look like? Well, it hasn’t been finally decided yet (we’ll discuss it at the next meeting, set for July 30 in DC). It will, at minimum, include the self-reported responses of various technology vendors in response to the questions posed by the analysis matrix. Of course, that will amount to little more than a stapled collection of spec sheets and marketing literature.
Michael Epstein (Philips) suggested that there would be an opportunity to ask vendors to clarify any incomplete or ambiguous responses at the October meeting. He quickly stressed, however, that the ARDG is not empowered to “grade” the technologies against each other. So there will not be any probing evaluation and testing of the technologies. But there may be something a bit beyond the self-reported information, if only “comments and clarifications.”
I’m still not at all sure what this final report will be used for. Perhaps it will be submitted to policy-makers, so that various partisans can advocate for technology mandates premised on technologies described in the report? (“Mr. Commissioner, we strongly believe that you should issue regulations requiring everyone in the marketplace to implement technologies 12, 32, or 46 in the ARDG Report.”) I just don’t know. Stay tuned.
Posted by fred at July 11, 2003 12:57 AM