First lesson to the GP about business. There's nothing written down where you have to be fair with your competitors. Or, for that matter, that you always have to make sure the little guy can compete with the big guns.
There's a couple of different reasons why this is.
First, a lot of the time the little guys don't have the same kind of portfolio as the bigger companies. And as a business looking for contractors you always want to people that the contractor in question has worked for. If you get rave reviews, that's great, but that doesn't mean you should still go with company A over company B.
You also want to make sure that they have all of the resources necessarry to complete the task. For example, Can they do it on a time table that suits your needs? Do they offer maintainence services?, etc.
Lastly, I have never heard a successful businessman say that his decision to go with Company A was made because he thought it'd be more fair to make sure everyone got a chance.
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Randy Hutchinson
You build it, I'll ride it