The state technology department spent many millions on IT goods last month, with its top five most expensive purchases combined reaching nine figures.
In March, the California Department of Technology made 51 purchases of IT goods, more than half of which were with the same vendor, according to data within the State Contract and Procurement Registration System. All told, CDT made 31 IT goods purchases last month with Crayon Software Experts LLC, a familiar vendor to the state. And it spent $115,014,516 on its top five most expensive purchases.
Each of those top five purchases appears to be via Microsoft Volume Licensing, most likely for Microsoft Office 365 government community cloud E5 shared servers for all language. Four of the purchases were made March 1 and are for a five-year term ending Feb. 28, 2026. The term of the fifth purchase is March 28-March 31, 2026.
That’s more than the cost of CDT’s five most expensive purchases of IT goods in any month during the past year or during 2020. In March 2020, by comparison, the department made 28 purchases of IT goods and spent $5,237,574 on its top five most expensive buys. A CDT spokesperson said the cost of the department’s top five purchases this March is due to a longer contract term, which reduces the unit costs, as well as an upgrade to Microsoft’s product suite that’s focused on security, compliance and communication.
Crayon Software Experts, which is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, also accounted for CDT’s single most expensive IT goods purchase of last year, a purchase of nearly $16 million made in February that appeared to be a volume licensing purchase of Microsoft 365 E3 government community cloud shared servers. The company has more than 2,000 employees in more than 50 offices in 35 countries, including 12 in the U.S.
