Quicksilver Finalists Selected

In technology, competition truly is the mother of innovation.

The first round of the Project Quicksilver competition is complete! Through the months of August and September we received 68 requests to participate in eBay's second public Data Center RFP codenamed Project Quicksilver. 61 companies qualified, and 20 submitted design proposals by the October 7th deadline. Today we have selected the 5 finalists based on a comprehensive and balanced scoring system that rated each companies submission based on the design concept, team capabilities, overall operational efficiency, sustainability and cost.

Our congratulations to the finalists (listed in alphabetical order):

1. Advanced Design Consultants, Inc
2. Team: Deerns & Gensler
3. KlingStubbins
4. M+W Group
5. Team: Winterstreet Architects & AHA Consulting Engineers

Each of the finalists will be receiving a design fee for their efforts in reaching the finalists round. They will also have the opportunity to present their designs to the Data Center Pulse end user community in early 2012. DCP members, stay tuned for details on that upcoming event.

Once again, I am very impressed with the excitement, creativity, and thoroughness of the proposals we received. I want to personally thank all 61 of companies that embraced this challenge. Similar to Project Mercury, we received many comments from the participants expressing their apprecition on being able to participate without the constraints and traditional boundaries that are normally placed upon a Data Center design project. We also received a deluge of emails from others who are observing or would like to be incldued in all levels of the project. Throughout the process, participants were able to gain insight into how eBay, the worlds largest on-line marketplace, is addressing their uprecedneted growth and uber-efficiency requirements. The hundreds of design charrettes that have resulted from Project Mercury learnings coupled with the public RFP process through Data Center Pulse is truly breaking the mold on how the industry approaches Data Center design, consutruction, and operation. We want to thank everyone who has contributed their passion and sweat into making this possible.

In the video below, Mike Lewis, Director of Mission Critical Engineering, James Monahan, Partner at CDCDG and I discuss the Public RFP process, scoring and selection of the finalists for Project Quicksilver.

We will be selecting the winner of the Project Quicksilver design in November. Stay tuned to Project Quicksilver updates through the project page. For more information on Quicksilver and Mercury, please email modular@ebay.com.