Kentucky's $150 Million PC Bid Hits Street Soon

The State of Kentucky's Finance and Administration Cabinet is poised to release a $150 million request for proposals to purchase hardware for an education technology initiative dubbed KETS, or the Kentucky Education Technology. KETS would connect state schools via a high-speed network.

The 1998 Intel Workstation Bid seeks five vendors to provide computers from Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Gateway 2000 Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Accent Systems. Awards will result in "the KETS-approved vendor list." The deal will run for one year, ending June 1999, but it carries a four-year option to extend price contracts."We are looking for vendors that can, from the first day of award, effectively handle this magnitude of sales, can meet delivery deadlines with quality enterprise--not consumer--workstations and can support equitably across every county in our state while meeting the performance standards in this bid," according to the RFP description available at www.kde.state.ky.us/bmss/oet/dsss/intelwsbid.html.

Bids will be opened May 6, said David Couch, director of KETS' Division of System Support.