I know nothing but my logic says the customer has a right to get bids and choose , not your client.
The promise is empty.
Thanks Pixie
Seems like a conflict of interest to me, but maybe I'm not understanding your sitch completely.
This is the way I see it. The "company" builds control simulators, isolated to nuclear until a few years ago. Because the nuclear market pretty much dried up, they started fossil simulation a few years ago and they now have numerous fossil simulators in the field. That initiated a "fossil" training market for their customers, they already have a nuclear training division. The company is going to pay for my evaluation. The "customer" is a long time client of the company. The customer contacted the company to do a evaluation of all of their training needs, not just simulation. I am a specialist in fossil training and I do most everything the customer would need. Although you may not think it but combustion training in a Rankine Cycle is a whole different ball game than Nuclear.
Now I know the company has developers for system descriptions, procedures, etc (combustion would probably be somewhat troublesome for them AFA labor time) but the money is in simulation instruction. I'm fairly certain that, AFA cost, no larger firm could compete in simulation training. It would be nice to get some of the development work, I could deal with not getting awarded that, but I'd hate to lose the simulation portion and I was thinking this may be a avenue to match even if was under bid. I'm also seeing this as my company being the "go to" contractor for the company should they get request for future training needs.
Suggest a fee for consulting/evaluating that will be waved if the project does not pan out?
Protect yourself first.
I am being paid for the initial evaluation.