Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
$50 to the manufacturer, and $5000 to the tax-payer?
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Quite possible.
And it might even be defensible; small lot, custom firmware, secure system certification...
The contract might carry $100-200k in programing costs alone. That's $600 per device right there. If the readers carry 100 contemporary titles at $3 a pop, that's another $100k, maybe $300k. And those are direct costs. Add in overhead, GSA negotiation costs... Easy to get to a million real fast.
Government contract costs carry more than just the manufacturing costs, many of which are associated with being allowed to sell through GSA. Which is why, a few decades back, they started a program to issue credit cards to operational groups at the branch level so they could get consumer grade consumables and small purchases quickly and cheaply.