SPAWAR goes through channels to buy 3,000 PCs
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In one of the largest federal channel assembly buys to date, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command has ordered 3,000 Hewlett-Packard Co. PCs, at a price of $6 million, to be assembled at a Frederick, Md., facility by GE Capital IT Solutions Federal Systems . Under SPAWAR's consolidated Program Directorate 15, four program offices in the Global Information and Network Systems Directorate placed the order early this year.
In one of the largest federal channel assembly buys to date, the Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Command has ordered 3,000 Hewlett-Packard Co. PCs, at a price of $6
million, to be assembled at a Frederick, Md., facility by GE Capital IT Solutions Federal
Systems .
Under SPAWARs consolidated Program Directorate 15, four program offices in the
Global Information and Network Systems Directorate placed the order early this year.
The program offices used GE Capital IT Solutions Tactical Advanced Computer
blanket purchasing agreement with SPAWAR, said Nikki Isfahani, head of the Navy
Information Technology Umbrella Program in San Diego. PD-15 plans to pay $8.4 million this
year for 4,969 of the Vectra VE/350 PCs with 350-MHz Pentium II processors and 64M of RAM,
SPAWAR spokesman Richard Williamson said.
SPAWAR also will order 408 Compaq ProLiant 1850R 6/400 and ProLiant 800 servers with
Pentium II processors for $3.4 million through a TAC BPA held by Compaq Computer Corp.
Also from Compaqs BPA, SPAWAR will get 1,160 HP LaserJet 4000 N and 8000 N
workgroup laser printers, which print up to 17 pages per minute and 24 ppm, respectively,
at 65,000- and 130,000-page monthly duty cycles.
PD-15 also will buy 104 Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. Satellite 4010CDT
notebook PCs with 266-MHz mobile Pentium II processors, 32M of synchronous dynamic RAM,
4.1G Ultra DMA hard drives and 12.1-inch displays.
The Satellite notebooks will cost $1.7 million through the TAC BPA held by Government
Technology Services Inc. of Chantilly, Va., Williamson said.
Because SPAWAR combined requirements and ordered through prenegotiated BPAs based on
General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule contracts, the buys will
save the Navy about $500,000, Williamson said.
GE Capital IT Solutions Federal Systems fulfilled the initial 3,000-unit SPAWAR
delivery order for the Vectra VE machines within 30 days, said Gilbert Gautereaux, vice
president of marketing and sales.
Gautereaux said it was the first large HP channel assembly order he knows of from a
federal agency.
Compaq, HP and IBM Corp. have all launched channel assembly programs, under which they
ship components to certified distributors and resellers.