Cisco Pricing Undercut By $100M In Big Cal State University Network Project

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 27, 2012 @08:54AM from the added-an-extra-zero dept.

alphadogg writes "The $100 million price differential between the Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco proposals to refresh California State University's 23-campus network revealed earlier this week was based on an identical number of switches and routers in various configurations. CSU allowed Network World to review spreadsheets calculating the eight-year total cost of ownership of each of the five bidders for the project. 'Everybody had to comply with this spreadsheet,' said CSU's director of cyberinfrastructure. 'Alcatel-Lucent won the project with a bid of $22 million. Cisco was the high bidder with a cost just under $123 million. Not only was Cisco's bid more than five-and-a-half times that of Alcatel-Lucent's, it was three times that of the next highest bidder: HP, at $41 million.'"

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Re:I knew cisco was expensive by tdelaney · 2012-10-27 09:03 · Score: 5, Informative

People who don't get competitive quotes but always buy Cisco because that's what they know.
Re:Maybe raising taxes isn't the only solution. by NotSanguine · 2012-10-27 10:22 · Score: 5, Informative

America spends more per capita on its schools than any other nation in the world.
Actually, we rank fourth
And on a percentage of GDP basis>/a> The US ranks 37th, tied with Estonia.

--
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Re:I knew cisco was expensive by sa666_666 · 2012-10-27 12:18 · Score: 5, Informative

I have to completely agree with this. I've been involved with several large-scale RFPs, and this is exactly how it goes. The only thing I'd add is that like clockwork, any party that doesn't win threatens to sue someone. It happens every time. They must be teaching this in business school or something. I've never seen a more childish group of people.