Techwire looked into state government purchases of IT goods, as listed by the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) and found that even before government-imposed social-distancing rules and remote-work routines were put in place, some state agencies and departments apparently were preparing for the expected surge in digital demand. And since enactment of those protocols under which tens of thousands of California government IT staffers are working remotely, some large contracts have been awarded.
The accompanying chart lists the seven largest purchases over $500,000 of IT goods by state agencies using “emergency” (non-competitive bid) contracts since March 6, along with the amount, the product purchased, and the vendor.
- The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services: $3,230,000 for Salesforce’s Customer Community Plus Logins; Allied Network Solutions.
- The Department of Public Health: $2,466,927 for Salesforce enterprise subscriptions; Taborda Solutions.
- The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS): $1,827,091 for HP laptops and related service; NWN Corp.
- Department of Justice: $994,844 for HPE servers; NWN Corp.
- Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV): $907,000 for Salesforce Service Cloud licenses; Allied Network Solutions.
- DHCS: $651,480 for FedRAMP-certified DocuSign Enterprise Pro; Solutions Simplified.
- DMV: $644,196 for Splunk cloud subscription with FedRAMP-moderate certification; Taborda Solutions.
