35 Bn Loss

I could not even imagine in my worst dreams what it would feel to lose a 35 Bn USD deal. That’s what the team at EADS must be feeling now in contrast to the glee at Boeing headquarters. This completes the cycle in a way; both the team has lost and won the same deal once. This does look like a final decision with the tempered reaction from EADS compared to Boeing of last time and few political realities. Read a bit about the last decision here.

Even thought there is always a thought of losing a deal, but EADS would have known it better after its win last time was over tuned. It is all known that none of the B2B deals are based on merits, or the cases are ever so easy to compare against each other. What decides the outcome is everything other than what is on the submitted paper. It’s the backroom machination that gets you the deal. To top all that, this was a defence deal. Sure even last time there would have been few other deciders and this time the odds were clearly visible against EADS. No need to mention the obvious. Alabama’s loss is Kansas’s gain, few careers lost is few careers built at Boeing. Apart from all these the greatest sadness of a loss is to see disappointment for so many, but life goes on. The best on this, in my opinion, came from Atmore’s Mayor Howard Shell - “That’s like a lot of other things sometimes things don’t happen like you would like for them to …”

I don’t think EADS should appeal, it would not win, and I would be happy to be proved wrong.
World is a tough place to be.

Update - So EADS is not going to contest the decision. Congratulations and Good Luck Boeing !