ECS

I've deferred the negotiation with Mark Knippa given my need for some
information from James and Kevin on our ability to avoid peak usage, etc.
Steve Harris and I talked this morning about settlement authority and our
going in position, obviously, is that ECS should pick up the whole $300+ K.
I expect that Knippa will angle toward a split the difference approach and
then try to put his share of the value on some future deal. To counter
that, I think I'll need to hit him pretty firmly on the "relationship
issue." I.e., he's got to fix this problem or his chance of doing more deals
with the pipeline group will be seriously hurt. That should be a big deal to
him and may get us the resolution we need. To push that I need three things
from you:
1. Rod, have we already communicated to ECS, or at a higher level like
Redmond, that we won't do any more deals with them? Obviously if we have
already told them we're done working with them, my threat won't carry much
weight.
2. Are you all OK with the threat? I suspect that our threat to quit doing
business with them will go immediately up their chain of command and that
Redmond or someone will call Stan to complain.
3. Can we agree conceptually to do future deals if Knippa needs a bucket to
put our dollars in? He may propose something specific and I'd like to be
able to agree that we will "work with them" on future deals.

Thanks. DF