The Department of General Services is soliciting bids from firms to provide tablets to state agencies and departments and participating local governments. The contracts will be mandatory for state departments and optional for local governments.
Contract proposers may submit proposals in these hardware "silos:" Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Microsoft, Rugged, Samsung and "Open."
"The selected bidder(s) will be the primary point for warehousing, data collection, reporting, and distribution of tablets to the State," the bid document says.
"The purchase of accessories, operating systems, warranties, and technical services will be ancillary to the purchase of the Tablets themselves; such ancillary purchases shall be available throughout the life of the contract," which DGS says will be two years with a maximum of three one-year extensions. Price adjustments shall be made by mutual agreement between the selected bidder or bidders, DGS said.
Questions regarding this IFB must be submitted in writing to the DGS-PD Procurement Official (Tina Larios) per the instructions outlined in the attached solicitation document. tina.larios@dgs.ca.gov
Final bids are due May 5, 2016. Dates are subject to change.
In February 2015 the California Department of Technology issued a policy giving qualified state entities the authority to purchase tablet devices on their own. The policy superseded a process enacted in 2012 in which an agency or department had to fill out a tablet justification form and send it to the then-California Technology Agency for approval before making the purchase.
