State contracts are your friend

I'm not sure if states universally negotiate contracts with vendors of IT equipment and services, or exactly how that works internationally.  However, I do know that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has some pretty serious buying power.  Same goes for most other states in the Union (yes, we're a Commonwealth, and, no, I don't know why we have to be different).  The beauty of this in terms of Ed Tech is that public educational institutions can make use of the state-negotiated contracts and, in addition to buying at very aggressive prices, can avoid a sealed bid process. 

Again, I can't speak to every state's (or country's) procurement rules and you should contact your state's (or country's) revenue agency (sorry, been getting some international readers lately, so I'm trying to be inclusive) to make sure you cross all of your t's and dot all of your i's.  However, in Massachusetts, because the state government has already negotiated deals with several first-tier vendors and contractors, you don't need to solicit bids.  This isn't to say you shouldn't solicit bids.  Due diligence doesn't go away just because the state has cut some spiffy deals with Dell.  The process can simply be much less formal, giving you the opportunity to ensure that you are getting the best product possible at the best prices without the bureaucracy of full-blown competitive bidding.

In fact, the de-emphasized bidding allows you to partner with vendors to determine the optimal solution for a given project, rather than focusing on the mandatory apples to apples comparison necessary to effectively evaluate bids.  For example, in a recent move to purchase a client-server system, I was able to solicit proposals from both Dell and HP and, while the prices were competitive from both vendors, the proposals were quite different in terms of server architecture.  One focused on simplicity and consolidation, while the other focused on redundancy and fault-tolerance, providing me with two solutions satisfying my requirements and allowing me to evaluate the merits of each without worry about component-by-component comparisons.

More importantly, at least on a more regular basis, I can simply contact any vendor identified in the state contract and buy what I need, assuming the dollar amounts are small enough.  Need cabling?  There's a vendor for that on the state contract.  How about contracted IT services?  There are vendors for that on a state contract too.

Government contracts hardly replace the need for carefully thought out requirements, RFPs, etc.  However, they are one more tool in your kit that can save you time, energy, and money.  Anything that saves me any one of those at this point certainly makes it into my list of friends. 

Folks from other states (and countries), please weigh in below if you've had good luck with government contracts.  Let us know about the rules you must follow and how to go about using these outstanding resources.