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0 <br />l l ~. <br />To: Rod Visser, Interim County Manager <br />From: Todd Jones, Chief Information Officer <br />Date: 10/20/2006 <br />Re: Collaborative PC Purchasing with School Systems <br />Rod, <br />During the August 31, 2006 Work Session at SHSC, you will recall that the Board <br />asked for Information Technologies to investigate opportunities for Orange County to <br />work with the two school systems in making bulk purchases of Personal Computers. <br />As you know, Orange County IT has pursued and continues to pursue collaborative <br />efforts with the school systems. Several of their staff have served on our IT advisory <br />committee, as I have done for special projects within the schools. Ray Reitz, the <br />Chief Technology Officer for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Angie. Veitch, the <br />Director of Technology and Media for the Orange County Schools, and I, often share <br />project information and offer assistance where possible. Most recently, we are <br />reaching out to the various High School photography clubs and art classes to engage <br />students in a digital photography project for improvements to the Orange County <br />website. <br />It is in the spirit of collaboration that I've engaged Ray and Angie in discussions about <br />potential joint PC purchasing initiatives. Ray, Angie, and I are receptive to leverage <br />any bulk purchasing opportunities in which technology needs converge. As you <br />know, North Carolina purchasing laws allow "piggybacking," a practice in which any <br />local government can purchase equipment according to the terms negotiated by any <br />other government agency within a specific time frame. Thus, not only can we <br />leverage any purchasing arrangements made by the two school systems, but also, <br />we can broaden our search to include other governmental agencies within the state. <br />Current pricing from our supplier, ~enovo, is below state contract pricing and can be <br />piggybacked with such large organizations as Mecklenburg and New Hanover <br />Counties, both of whom are Lenovo customers. <br />Many aspects of technology purchasing for schools included specific and substantial <br />discounts for educational purposes only. Any procurement of PCs and attendant <br />software that falls into this category is not subject to the piggybacking approach. The <br />two schools systems and Orange County each have standardized on different <br />