EDS upgrading NMCI's Dells

Electronic Data Systems Corp. plans to upgrade the desktop PCs it offers through the Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract before the first 42,000 users switch over to the vendor-provided hardware and software this summer.

EDS plans to replace the Dell Computer Corp. OptiPlex GX110 PCs it currently offers on the NMCI contract with Dell OptiPlex GX150s, said Rick Rosenburg, EDS' NMCI program executive, speaking Wednesday at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association TechNet conference.

EDS must provide technology at least as good as what it listed when it bid on NMCI last year, with the Navy Department paying the same price per user under three main PC categories — red, white and blue. The company has to add new products to its contract at regular intervals.

"The Navy will probably upgrade before they get their first seat," Rosenburg said. This NMCI contract feature is an example of how the government can purchase the latest technology without paying extra for it, he said. EDS won the eight-year NMCI contract in October 2000.

As it stands now, the department would pay $246.51 per month for Dell OptiPlex PCs that have 800 MHz Intel Corp. Pentium III processors, 256M of RAM and 10G hard drives for the high-end, or "red," NMCI user offering. EDS plans to add the OptiPlex GX150s to NMCI within 30 days. It would offer at the same high-end seat price OptiPlex GX150s with either a 1 GHz or a 933 MHz Pentium III processor, Rosenburg said.

Two lower-performance OptiPlex GX110s are offered under NMCI under the "white" and "blue" offerings. Department users will pay $238.64 per month for the mid-tier "white" seat and $232.34 per month for the entry-level "blue" seat, according to EDS' NMCI Web site ({http://www.eds.com/nmci} www.eds.com/nmci).

Rosenburg said that the new Dell entry-level seat would be a 933 MHz PC, which would mean it would be an OptiPlex GX150 PC powered by a 933 MHz Celeron processor, if EDS holds to its strategy of offering an Intel Celeron processor as its "blue" seat.