I remember the political maneuvering around the system when it was Motorola and still in its first phase. By all accounts I've heard, it worked well where it had been implemented.
The State and Motorola had agreed on a timetable for the build-out and Motorola was on schedule, doing what the contract stipulated.
When the contract came up for renewal, the Good Ol' Boy Network went into high gear.
This was at a critical time for the company formerly and once upon a time known as GE Communications. ("We Bring Good Things To Life")
Brief history: GE partnered up with Ericsson, and together they developed the "16 Plus" trunked system, later renamed EDACS. EDACS was, and still is, an efficient, robust, and simple control channel based trunked radio system well suited for public safety usage. Ericsson-GE sold a PILE of EDACS systems.
Later, GE decided to get out of the business completely, and a start-up know as Comm-Net, basically consisting of the people running and operating GE's Lynchburg, Va. radio department, bought out GE's interests in the business and partnered up with Ericsson. For a while, they ran under the name Comm-Net/Ericsson and occasionally you'll find a radio on the used market that bears that name. But not many, because this phase didn't last very long.
Before too much time had passed, Ericsson changed directions and got out of the public safety communications market. At least, for now, and in North America. This left the people of Comm-Net holding the bag, all by themselves, without the supporting engineering staff of a global tech company to help them, for the first time ever.
Now called Comm-Net, they did not prosper. Sales were dropping and the end of the GE radio legacy seemed to be near. Lacking deep pockets and deep technical resources, they bid on any contract they could to try to stay afloat.
For reasons that utterly defy any semblance of sane decision making, The Florida Department of Managerial Services selected Comm-Net and awarded them what at the time was the largest radio contract in history. They selected Comm-Net despite Comm-Net not having any products in their catalog that met certain clearly defined stipulations in the contract regarding design features of the radios to be used, (no ramp buttons, mobile radios with a hand-held controller option must be available, to name two), and despite the fact that one of Comm-Net's proposals was actually illegal. (That being the proposal to revenue share excess capacity by leasing access to commercial enterprises, this being illegal as the system was to operate only within the public safety frequency pool, and thus making non-public safety usage illegal as per FCC rules and regulations.)
With a multi-billion dollar contract in hand, now Comm-Net was able to attract the attention and partnership of global electronics giant Tyco Electronics, under the M-A/Com brand name. (A name usually associated with microwave components.) A while later, the M/A-Com name was dropped, and now the company and the radios were simpy branded Tyco.
Then Harris bought them out, a few years ago, and has done more to build market share for this GE legacy business than any other owner since GE.
Anyway, there's the history of what's now Harris.
The contract, though, also made a point of saying "We can build the system out faster and cheaper than Motorola) when in fact Motorola was quite capable of installing the system as fast as required. But Motorola complied with the relaxed pace called for by the contract they were under. How can you blame them for complying with the letter of the contract?
The whole thing was a rotten deal.
I truly hope that Motorola gets its revenge.
