California's $116 million in PC contracts

California is shelling out about $116 million in new statewide contracts with seven different PC makers, officials said Friday. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Gateway were the biggest winners in the open, competitive bidding process. Sixty percent of bidders' scores were based on price, while 40 percent were based on technical requirements such as service and customer referrals. The contracts mark the first time the state has switched from costlier custom designs to off-the-shelf computer models.

HP, Gateway and the team of Sacramento-based Western Blue and Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight Enterprises scored the estimated $53 million two-year contract for desktop computers. IBM and Gateway won the State's $22 million notebook contract. The printer contract was split unevenly between HP, with $8 million, and the Western Blue-Insight team, with $25 million. Gateway won the contract for monitors, worth an estimated $9 million.