David M Williams
Thursday, 16 April 2009 18:54
Business IT -
Technology
Page 1 of 3
The Government has been far from forthcoming when it comes to revealing any details behind the New South Wales (NSW) laptop tender choices. There are unanswered questions from Linux buffs, taxpayers, students and parents, and transparent Government advocates alike.
We at iTWire
have been covering the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education (DET) decision that awarded Lenovo and Microsoft the contract to provide laptops for hundreds of thousands of senior school students.
Governments at all levels review tenders and grant contracts. Not all of these are of interest to all sectors of the community. I have no real concern about who, for instance, has been selected as the sole supplier of public service uniforms. When it comes to laptops for high school students I am very interested.
After all, technology is my field. And it’s your field, or at least a strong interest of yours, also or you wouldn’t be here right now. I’m a resident of the state of NSW and a taxpayer, and a parent. So, I really want to know the Government is making the right decision.
I’m also a Linux evangelist; you can read my regular
Linux Distillery column here on iTWire each week. So, I also have a strong interest in knowing why a Linux solution was not selected.
That’s not sour grapes on my part. It may have been that no Linux vendor was organised enough to actually make a submission. That would have been a terrible gaffe on the part of the Linux community.
When the tender was first put forth DET mandated a price of $500 per machine. Given that had to include hardware and software it certainly looked like Linux had a strong foot forward from the get go.
It is not at all surprising that Microsoft would have gone in with aggressive pricing to secure a deal. Although, of course, any licensing cost is still more than that imposed by a Linux option.
It stands to reason the more spent on software the less budget remained for hardware. Could Linux options have included better quality laptops than those put forward by Lenovo? Indeed, did the Lenovo/Microsoft combo exceed $500 per unit?
I pursued the office of Hon. Verity Firth, Minister for Education. I’d asked if it was possible to get information detailing the companies who had tendered, the technical specifications of their hardware and software, and their costings.
After a fortnight of calls and e-mails I received a single paragraph response.
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