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Just shows that the incompetence of government is everyones problem.
Trouble-making Chinese paper the Southern Metropolis Daily has turned up an invoice showing that the Chinese Academy of Sciences is paying more than $1,000 for 128MB memory sticks. The price is about nine times what one might expect, and when the paper questioned HP they were told that the unit should cost around $47 but that …
"...incompetence of government ..."
Uhm, incompetence of *any* large organization, in details like these. Everyone working in big companies can tell stories about how the corporate IT function makes acquiring little widgets you could buy from your neighbourhood supermarket twice as expensive.
It's obvious HP mixed up the invoice: the Jetdirect 620n network adapter was the $1000 while the 128M extra printer memory was $156 (the 1000 yuan shown on the invoice next to the Jetdirect)
Not the best deals true, but not so wild either.
If this is news I must have dozens of news articles on my invoice folder...
The invoice says "128M" and the article says 128 MB. I would think a 128 MB USB stick is worth perhaps $1.00 or less these days? A 128 GB might be worth the $47 mentioned.
Then again "exact replacement" of old technology can be expensive. Several years ago we had to have a particular 3Com 10Mbit with AUI for a government contract and it cost 10 times what a current 100Mbit UTP ethernet interface cost.
The people here who make the buying decisions haven't a clue about what they are buying. We are told : "They are experts at buying"; maybe, certainly expert at handing money over and filling the paperwork, but at nothing else.
A few years ago, when PC prices were dropping like a stone, our purchasing dept announced that they had secured a deal to buy PCs at a price FIXED for the next 3 years. They were proud of it too, the idiots.