In July 1968 Larry Roberts finished the draft of the ARPAnet IMP request for proposals. He sent the RFP to 140 companies in August, and asked for a response in thirty days. IBM rejected the idea, saying it was impossible to build IMPs with anything less than extremely expensive and huge mainframe computers. Several other companies, however, replied that they could build an even faster and more responsive network than Roberts specified. Raytheon became the frontrunner, entering final negotiations in December, but it was BBN that won the contract as Christmas Day approached.