Slashdot Mirror
US Army Signs $471,000,000 Deal for Microsoft Software
zero_offset writes "According to this article at Yahoo, Microsoft will provide software for 494,000 Army computers during the next six years. At roughly $950 per computer this clearly involves more than just the OS, although the article unfortunately doesn't provide details, and I was unable to find any references to this on the Microsoft website." The great things about this deal: the Army is going through a reseller, when clearly they have the purchasing power to buy direct; and most of the computers they purchase are normal consumer machines which will be purchased with Windows and Office already installed, so the Army will be paying twice for each machine.
"so the Army will be paying twice for each machine"
/. is slanted. It still irritates me though.
I RTFA and I saw NO reference to anyone paying twice. The article does not state this deal is for the OS and office, so you, Michael, should not assume anyone is paying twice.
I know, I know. NO, I am not new here. Yes, I know
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
My friend did some contract work for the Army a few months back. They needed a pair of IBM RS/6000 P-series 660s, fully loaded, attached to a pair of FastT700 fibrechannel arrays. Close to $1M worth of hardware, by my rough estimates, having purchased similar hardware in the past.
This was for a workgroup of 30 people.
Government contracts are the best.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
AFAIK, WinXP has not been approved for use on any DoD network. There are a few stand-alone systems out there, but XP on a network is a big no-no.
sine puella vita suget
Lay off the toilet seats. They weren't that expensive, it's an overhead (read cost accounting) issue. Imagine a project, Weapon X, with $1BN in R&D expense required to design the weapon, but where actually producing the full run of Weapon X only costs $100MM (not an unusual situation in military procurement). Then imagine that, as part of that $100MM, there's a wrench needed to tighten the bolts on Weapon X. Since only 10 of these wrenches will ever be produced (they're oddly shaped to fit into the chassis of Weapon X, and the bolt is a strange size), so the cost of the mold and casting is $500 - it's a $50 wrench - pricy, but not ridiculous. For the project as a whole, though, remember you have to allocate that $1BN in R&D cost. From a cost accounting point of view, every dollar spent on the wrench gets $10 in R&D allocation. Voila, a $550 wrench.
Before you get on the Army for not buying Linux or doing something Free, consider this.
In my unit (B Co. 1/509th Abn.) we have I think 7 systems. They all run Windows 2000 and are connected to a network, through which we can access printers, other systems, and the Internet. You would be *amazed* at how many people come in a day with problems printing, getting the Internet to work, or just getting a certain program to run. You want infantrymen who at least have some familiarty with office and windows to try learning bash or mutt? It's all we can do to get all the systems functioning properly, with everyone remembering their passwords and able to get there damned email and print. If the Army mandated Linux, there would be a 4 week training program, after which chaos would ensue because 90% of the people still didn't understand it.
Your talking about people who have trouble checking email. Asking infantrymen to run linux as part of their work would be ludicrous at this point.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
i feel i need to clear a few things up for those of you who aren't in the resale industry. first off, the article says nothing about them buying the systems from Softmart. second, since this is a 6 year agreement and it says that Softmart get's a commision, this is not a resale it's an Enterprise Agreement. that kind of contract is handled direct only and Microsoft controls the pricing, but in order to make things fair for LARs (large account resellers) the deal has to be sponcered by a LAR. that reseller get's a kickback commision (like 2%), not a sale. in an Enterprise Agreement, they are agreeing to an accross the board standard to your desktops. if that $900 figure is correct then they got a great deal because that will cover the OS, Office, and all the core CALs for 6 years, including automatic upgrade rights for anything new that comes out (which given the upgrade cycle should be about 4 new versions of each). any normal company would have to pay about 5 times more for this. just try and name a company with a large install base that wouldn't jump at 4 OS's, 4 Office's and 4 of each CAL for $900. this news shows us two things in reality. one is that there is a helluva lot of markup in this product. and second is that the miltary made a good move (or MS a bad one) because they would have bought all this anyway, but at a much higher price over time. by the way, an Enterprise Agreement is not an upfront sale but a yearly payment with true-ups.
FateCreatr, Out.