[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Daithi

According to the article to which I linked, the maximum number of eReaders is 35,000 over five years (or 7,000 per year). I think that is $471 per eReader, which come pre-loaded with 50 books. However, many of the 50 books may be public domain books. Amazon may have also agreed to a dedicated help desk or some such thing. The exact details on this program are a bit fuzzy.

You're allocating all contract costs to the hardware and none to the back end servers and support. As if dishing up hardware and flipping it over the wall is *all* Amazon would be doing. That is *not* how government contracts work.

The way this contract works, the government is getting the 3G readers at 10% off and the rest of the money is for *services*. And *not* cheap services; it's not just a dedicated help desk.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/globa...00-each/53407/

Update: After some discussions with Amazon and the State Department, we've learned the price tag on the Kindle contract is not as cut and dry as we first reported. The contract authorizes the State Department to pay Amazon up to $16.5 million over five years for an English-language teaching program and the 2,500 Kindles cited in the procurement documents has been described to us as merely the initial order.
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Previously: we reached out to the State Department's Philippe Reines, who emailed to say that the department was getting the actual Kindle devices for 10 percent off retail price. The rest of the cost goes to cover the service and content-providing agreements in the department's four-year contract with Amazon.

https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&m...=core&_cview=0

Without going to deep, do you think these three services are free?

4. The Contractor shall provide 3G services globally. The Contractor is responsible for all costs associated with 3G services globally (i.e., downloading content and access to the Internet Browser).
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6. The Contractor shall provide an exclusive, private online document repository from which the Department of State may distribute USG public domain material accesible via 3G or Wi-Fi from the locations listed in Attachment A.

5 years of global 3G services for *everything* The State Department chooses to distribute to those devices, including graphics and video files? That's a blank check: the feds can bleed the contractor dry if they choose to. They probably won't but they're going to get their money's worth: it's right there in the contract.