Buying American in IT Procurement

Service or product? As cloud services gain in popularity, technology and procurement managers need to navigate the murky waters of regulations governing the purchase of those services.

In May 2011, the General Services Administration (GSA) did something it does all the time—it issued a request for quotations (RFQ), in this particular case for cloud-based email, office suite applications, and records-management services. In the RFQ, it also made what it thought was a routine stipulation: D