So I place an advertisment to have a fairly strainght forward mission accomplished:

I need to have an Android machine to be set up in such a way that the machine will only run the one or two apps that I specify and also allow for a reader to display the one or two files that I specify. The machine must not be able to do anything else. The user must not be able to add, delete or modify anything at all. I don't want him to be able to delete the icons, change the time, nothing at all. The machine mst boot a custom splash screen and display a custom wallpaper.

The machines will be used remotely. If the files need to be updated then the machines will be sent back home...

Ok, so that was the ad.

I get a quote for 4-6 weeks at R250 an hour.

Then I get a quote for R4,000 to develop a custom splash screen and application manager (this seems fair)

Another crowd asked me for my budget and said that they will then tell me how long it would take (Never heard from them again when i pointed out that they should tell me how long it would take and what it would cost )

The latest quote was for R10,000 When I asked the guy for more details he said that he has a really good developer that he can use (so where does the R10,000 come from) He later went on to mail me a whole song and dance about a custom CMS to dynamically update the splash screen. (I am sure that it would include a fully integrated, high throughput, multi-lingual, Unicode YoYo that also doubles as a Ding Bat provided that I install Telnet, FTP and Windows 7 on an external harddrive tetherd to the "cloud" via 4G IPv6)

No wonder IT has such a bad name (IT seems to be fraught with oppertunist idiots who speak the lingo and don't do much else.