University Gazette

Campus renews CCI contract with IBM

The University has renewed its contract with IBM to supply machines for the Carolina Computing Initiative, and the best news about it is that there is nothing new about it.

"The contract renewal is the same as the original," said John Oberlin, the University's associate vice chancellor for information technology. "The University holds two, two-year options to renew. We exercised the first of these options."

The contract covers all IBM PCs but is focused around two laptop and two desktop models that the University selects each year as the basis for the Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI), Oberlin said. The CCI supplies the campus with computers, including machines for departments and those purchased by freshmen to meet a laptop requirement.

"The pricing is very competitive, but it's the service and support that distinguishes the CCI more than pure price," Oberlin said.

Oberlin said the decision to renew the contract was an easy one.

"The University has no obligations to buy anything from IBM under the contract, and there are no restrictions on the University to seek other contracts or services should we choose to do so," he said. "The University holds all the options in the contract.

"We have the sole option to renew; we have the sole option to purchase or not; and we have the sole option to cancel. The pricing and services that are part of the contract have proven so good that it's to our benefit to renew and continue using the contract."

If the University was ever to conclude that it wasn't getting a good deal, it's free to stop using the contract and go to another vendor.

"There is simply no risk to the University," Oberlin said.

Linwood Futrelle of Academic Technology and Networks said that as of April 30 there had been 23,226 CCI machines delivered to campus during the first four years of the contract.

Roughly half of the machines have gone to students, and the others have gone to University departments. More than 14,500 of the machines were laptops, Futrelle said.

All departments within the College of Arts and Sciences have received CCI machines for all faculty, staff and teaching graduate students, and several departments have received them twice because machines are replaced every three years, Futrelle said.

Among the departments getting the most have been English at 170 and Romance languages at 140. This fall, about 3,200 out of the 3,600 incoming freshmen will choose the CCI offerings through the Student Stores.

University Gazette