WA, NT pick PC revolution suppliers

Western Australian schools have the choice of Lenovo, Apple or CDM Computers when procuring their computers funded by the Federal Government's Digital Education Revolution.

(Apple Bonanza image by Mads Bødker, CC 2.0)

Peter McCaffrey, deputy director general finance and administration for the state's Department of Education and Training (DET), said that the department would use its existing contracts to provide the computers.

The desktop suppliers were CDM Australia and Apple Computers, he said, while the notebook suppliers were Lenovo and Apple. Final negotiations with Lenovo were still being wrapped up.

Australian-owned CDM Computers designs and manufactures desktops and is the largest desktop supplier to the government and education sectors in Western Australia.

Individual schools were to decide whether they wanted desktops or notebooks, but DET is encouraging them to favour notebooks. Over the whole of the Digital Education Revolution, the department expected that the schools would need 46,000 new computers, McCaffrey said.

The Northern Territory said it would also use an existing contract to procure computers. Dell currently holds the contract, although it is up for renewal in September this year, according to a spokesperson for the Northern Territory Department of Education.

Round one computers had been delivered, the spokesperson said, with round two to follow soon. The total number of computers granted to NT schools in those two rounds, including non-government schools, was 2042.

Of the other states, NSW has signed a contract with Lenovo, while Tasmania formed a panel of Lenovo and Acer, and Victoria has been running a trial with the same vendors. Queensland also used an old panel with five vendors: HP, ComputerCORP, Acer, Dell and Apple.