Dell Lands Huge PC Contract
( 1/07/98; 1:43 p.m. EST)
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee , InformationWeek
techweb.com
Ford Motor signed a multimillion-dollar deal to buy more than 10,000 PCs from Dell, which beat out IBM, Gateway 2000, and other major PC vendors for the contract.
Ford buys most of its PC products, including servers, desktops, and laptops, from IBM and Dell, a Ford spokesman said. "We're trying to simplify the complexity of the procurements as the cost of supporting all these products goes up," he said.
Dell won this latest contract based on price and Ford's "previous good experience in dealing with Dell," among other factors, the spokesman said.
The PCs, most with 32 megabytes of RAM and 200-MHz Pentium processors running Windows, will be used initially for Microsoft Office, e-mail, and Internet applications by users in Ford's Dearborn, Mich., facilities, the spokesman said. The desktops may also be used in other larger IT initiatives the company is evaluating, he said.
Although Ford has a number of large desktop procurements during most years, the Dell deal, signed about a week ago, is "unusually large," he said.
Financial terms of the contract haven't been completed. |
