Microsoft Wins Homeland Security Contract

syzme writes "According to The Register (as well as Reuters and News.com), 'The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has signed a deal for Microsoft software worth something in the region of $100 million, covering servers and over 140,000 desktops. This does not however mean that Microsoft and its hench-OEM Dell are poised to hoover up all of the Department's lovely IT budget, nor indeed that this is all new money for them; largely, it seems to be more a case of Microsoft holding onto business it's already got.'" This shouldn't be much of a surprise -- remember the Federal government is already Microsoft's biggest customer.

Comments

The dirty little secret is...

[Anonymous Coward]

that DHS already has many Open Source (and non-MS) apps widely deployed... They are extensively using Apache, Squid, Open Office (in some places) and things like Java for other day to day operations...

Some of their integration efforts are mentioned here:

http://www.govexec.com/features/1202/1202managet ec h.htm

(Disclaimer: I work for DHS.)

Re:Can we review the contract?

[caseydk]

The RFP (Request for Proposal) should be public information. They're not always easy to find, but they're out there.

Bids, on the other hand, are usually confidential. Pricing models, extra services offered, exact numbers of everything is not available to make sure that bidders don't game (ie, low-ball) their bid to kill the other guy.

Details of Microsoft/Homeland Security contract...

[securitas]

... courtesy of the rejected post machine. The government sector news sites are always good - and usually better - for details about contracts of this sort:

Microsoft/Dell Gets $90-$120 Million Homeland Security Contract

Microsoft has been awarded the five-year, $90 million Department of Homeland Security contract for desktop and server software. The contract will be managed by Dell and will provide the DHS with 140,000 desktops running Windows XP and Microsoft Office Professional. When consolidated with current agreements, the contract amounts to a six-year agreement covering 144,000 desktops, worth between $110 million and $120 million. This follows the $478 million, six-year deal with the Army announced last month. More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington Post, InformationWeek, the Register , eWEEK, and Reuters.

Re:Site

[UnknowingFool]

Dell does sell computers without an OS if you are a business or government. They will even substract the OS cost from the price of the machine. They cannot not do the same for home computers because of a contract they had with MS that basically stated since Dell was getting such a good deal on Windows licenses, they could not sell computers that didn't come with an OS.

Since businesses usually purchase a volume license, businesses needed an option not to buy Windows again. To get around this, Dell will ship computers with a lite version of DOS. You can't really do much with this version of DOS, but if your company is installing your volume license anyways, you don't need it.