If the quote is correct, then 5 staff members and 8 advisors spent one month each
on a total of 47 applications. That is 13 work months and an AVERAGE of six days
per application.
There must be a gross error somewhere because I cannot imagine
that a decent review is done in that short a time frame. However, from the many comments
on this board on 'disagreements' between the applicants and the staff review, it
may be the case!!!
Then, neglecting any overhead costs, applicants paid over US$
8'000 per day for the review.
Again there must be an error in the numbers. Assuming
the process definition took 12 working months (3 persons for 4 months, for example),
that is still US$ 4'000.- per day.
But, it is probable that certain applications
took much longer, others less time. Lets say the more complex ones took 12 days,
the simpler ones 3 days. It means that certain applicants paid US$ 8'000 per review
day, others US$ 2'000.
Intuitively, I would have expected, for a 50'000 fee and
based on cost recovery, between 50 to 70 work days on each application. To put that
amount of time in a month one would require two persons per application - i.e. a
team of 80 to 100 persons.
I would not count the time it takes for the next phase
as it may be limited to 4 to 10 applicants and its cost would be recovered on what
the TLD operators will pay ICANN.
Makes you think...
Hugues Du Bois
Switzerland