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The Obama Administration has ordered US federal agencies to hold off on purchasing new PCs in hopes of patching up a broken ordering system.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has put a hold on new desktops and notebooks while it sorts through what it says are "thousands" of new system orders every year.
OMB said that because agencies lack a standardized way to order, maintain, and replace their IT infrastructure, officials are forced to seek out their own contracts and purchase orders to get new PCs, leading to huge accumulated costs in waste.
"There is no need for thousands of contracts to purchase common laptops and desktops," the OMB said in its order late last week.
What answer do you predict the US government will reach, "Surfaces for everyone!"?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday October 21 2015, @02:51PM
Of course this is so they can have one huge corrupt deal instead of many. This is the government we are talking about right? If they weren't already totally invested in Windows I'd bet serious money a huge Apple contract is coming but nah, even Obama can't pull that one off since he needs the drones to stay happy. So good news everyone, you are getting a new Dell! Who wants to bet against a huge five or ten year locked in contract getting inked next year.... and the winner having an irresistible urge to give to Democrats up and down the ticket until it hurts. Unlike the Clintons with their almost humorous antics of moneygrubbing, Obama doesn't seem to be in it for the crass personal graft but for the power.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 21 2015, @07:42PM
There's a counterargument though. 1 big corrupt deal is likely to be cheaper than thousands of small corrupt deals: Not only does the purchasing agent have more negotiating power to push the prices down, but there are lot fewer people that need to be bought off. Compare, say, the costs of bribing 5 people on a national selection committee to bribing 600 people from the statewide offices of 12 different departments - even if the kickback is, say, $100,000 per person for the large bid versus $1000 per person for the small bid, that works out to less money being spent on corruption.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:48AM
Dell? No, it'll probably be a shitty HP.
And how exactly with the drones be happy with Windows 10 anyway? No one likes that shit except for a few total morons.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:57AM
It talks to their Active Directory, does the full Exchange experience, etc. And all of the internal apps. Never forget that one, that is the real secret to Microsoft's power; the zillions of internal apps (ok, forms tied to an Access database in most cases but they are so proud of themselves) that in many cases the source is lost so if binary compatibility breaks they are lost.