[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/1/24 Naoko Komura <nkomura at gmail.com>:
> Hello, Thomas.
>
> I admire your persistence in putting your question forward until your
> question is answered.  :-)  Let me try to answer your questions by giving
> you the background of this negotiation.

Persistence is certainly not something I'm lacking! Some disagree
about how admirable that is, though...

> So the number of total quotes
> collected are ten including Wikia.  The criteria of request for quotes were
> 1) the space needs to house minimum five personnel  and (2) the project team
> needs a meeting room.  These ten quotes are not apple-to-apple comparison,
> for example parameters such as total space availability, infrastructure
> readiness, meeting room availability, distance from the WMF, access to
> kitchen, noise level, furnished and etc.  Of course, the price varies too.
> We narrowed down our selection to two office space candidates

How did you narrow it down? Was there something specific the cheaper
bids were lacking?

>, one is a
> shared office (open space) with architects and a game software company,
> which is near the Moscone Center (15 minutes walk from the WMF).  Let's call
> this space X for simplicity's sake.  Wikia's sub-lease space, let's call it
> W, offered a smaller floor space than X, but the workspace is enclosed and
> can be shut down from noise, and access to a kitchen and toilet were better
> than X.  Connectivity was ready to go, we just need to install a router for
> WiFi.  W's asking price was more than X, but we said our offer price would
> not be more than the price quoted by X.  So, W evaluated if they can rent
> out space higher than our offer price.  As there was no higher bidder than
> us, W had agreed to offer the space at our offer price.

Well, it certainly sounds like you made the right decision between X
and W - a better solution for the same cost, who wouldn't take it? So
it seems the only question remaining is about how you came up with the
shortlist.

Thank you for helping me understand this decision.