EPA signs green leasing deal with Dell
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A new leasing agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Dell Inc. will let EPA pump savings from replaced PCs back into its research programs.<br>
A new leasing agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Dell Inc. will let EPA pump savings from replaced PCs back into its research programs.
The pair announced the three-year deal, an add-on to an existing blanket purchasing agreement, today at FOSE 2004 in Washington. Dell will consolidate and replace aging EPA desktop and notebook clients and servers with new ones running Microsoft Windows XP.
"By leasing our systems, we can start accruing savings from our consolidation project as soon as it's complete," said Cliff Moore, technology director for the Office of Research Development.
Moore said the BPA add-on option was negotiated last August in an open competition. "The lease savings are all upfront," he said. "We can see immediate results" by having the new XP hardware on hand as the scientific side of EPA begins to implement Microsoft Active Directory. "The agency is committed to using Active Directory wherever it makes sense," Moore said.
EPA estimated the deal would let it bolster scientific research programs by about $2 million through the end of fiscal 2005'the money would come from any remaining value from the replaced systems.
For newer systems, "we'll shop the price and give cash back to the agency along with reports to verify that the disks were wiped," Dell services marketing director Bob Riazzi said. Commercial computers currently depreciate at about 6 percent per month, he said.
Dell will recover any hardware assets and dispose responsibly of systems with no residual value'mostly those more than three years old, said Thomas S. Buchsbaum, vice president of Dell federal systems. Refurbished computers will be donated to middle schools in disadvantaged areas, he said.
Under the BPA, the agency can either lease or buy Dell clients, servers and Latitude D-family notebook PCs. Dell will also provide factory integration and data migration services for the replaced systems.