Compaq Wins $120 Million Contract to Supply Houston Schools
By Peter J. Brennan
Houston, March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Compaq Computer Corp., the world's second-largest personal-computer maker, said it won a $120 million contract from the Houston Independent School District.
Compaq will supply ProLiant servers, Evo desktops and laptops and Ipaq Pocket PCs over three years, said Jim Weyland, Compaq's vice president for government and education. Compaq has supplied the school district for the past seven years and won this contract through a competitive bid, he said.
``We've learned that we've had to be price competitive and have full integration'' of the computer systems to win the contract, Weyland said.
Compaq has won more than $250 million in business from educational entities since it announced in September it was being acquired by Hewlett-Packard Co. for $22.3 billion. Weyland said the contracts show customers won't leave Compaq because of the acquisition, as the deal's opponents contend.
Critics have said the company may lose business because customers may be unsure which products will survive the acquisition.
The school sales include equipment needed to run computer networks, Weyland said.
``The majority of the revenue is not from PCs,'' Weyland said. ``That's the message we've had tried to get through.''
Compaq also announced that it has signed contracts totaling $12 million with five school districts in New Jersey. In recent months, the Houston-based company has also signed a $25 million agreement with the University of Wisconsin and a $40 million contract with New York State University's Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics, in Buffalo.
Compaq shares fell 7 cents yesterday and have dropped 47 percent in the past year.
Dell Computer Corp. is the largest PC maker. |
