[Vision2020] Computer contract over estimate

[Kevin Owen]

Sue,

You are so correct about cutting out the small vendors.  This contract (as it was first written in the RFP) required that not only you provide the wireless devices, (laptops), but that you maintain them for the duration and provide the technical support for them.  You must also have committed to building out and installing new wireless distribution services to each high school in the State.  And the final kicker, you must be the original equipment manufacturer of the laptops.  That means, even if First Step was big enough to have provided all of the support services and installations  around the State, we still would have been excluded because we don’t make our own hardware!

This is just a further continuation of the local companies that have been servicing the schools for years being replaced.  It is the same thing that happened when the State put in the tax payer funded Idaho Education Network.  The local ISP’s that were providing service to the schools were removed in almost all cases.  First Step was able to continue working with a few schools but for the most part we were replaced with more expensive services.  When we, and several lawmakers, asked about the comments that the IEN had made in the planning stages stating they would use local businesses to provide the service, their response was that Frontier and US West (now CenturyLink) were local businesses just like First Step.

Yes, I predict the local / smaller companies will be further replaced in this plan.  I hope we can find a positive way to continue working with the IEN but given the past I am not sure there will be a place for us.

Kevin Owen
First Step Internet, LLC


From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Sue Hovey
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2012 3:27 PM
To: Joe Campbell; Ron Force
Cc: Moscow Vision2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Computer contract over estimate

Oh, I think he adds pretty well.  What he cannot do, is tell the truth.  Want to bet HP is helping to fund the YES vote?   One of the concerns I heard the other day concerned the type of bid.  It is so whole cloth that it cuts out all the smaller vendors.  I suppose HP might sub-contract, but that wasn’t  what the companies wanted.

Sue H

From: Joe Campbell<mailto:philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2012 9:50 AM
To: Ron Force<mailto:rforce2003 at yahoo.com>
Cc: Moscow Vision2020<mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Computer contract over estimate

Essentially the Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction cannot add.

On Oct 27, 2012, at 9:13 AM, Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com<mailto:rforce2003 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
$180 Million Contract Divides Lawmakers

The Associated Press
BOISE, IDAHO — The eight-year, $180 million pact with Hewlett-Packard Co. for laptops required under public schools chief Tom Luna's education overhaul is dividing Idaho's Republican lawmakers.
Rep. Lynn Luker of Boise said Friday during a meeting inside the Capitol the price was "double pretty much what we anticipated."
Sen. John Goedde of Coeur d'Alene countered it's only 10 percent above estimates.
Who's right?
In 2011, Luna estimated the five-year cost at $70.8 million, or $14.6 million annually.
For the first five years of the actual H-P contract, the cost is $82 million, about 16 percent higher, conceded Luna spokeswoman Melissa McGrath.
And over eight years, the average annual cost runs $22.5 million, well over Luna's estimate when calculated yearly.
Voters weigh in on the computers and Luna's additional education changes Nov. 6.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/10/27/2325238/180m-computer-contract-divides.html#storylink=cpy
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               http://www.fsr.net
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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