In my opinion, they are undertaking this process with a view to centralization, which will allow them to create efficiencies from a cost perspective and across the total range of devices that the federal government procures. In our experience, a couple truisms come into play. One is where there's mystery, there's margin. What they're moving towards is what's referred to in the industry as “ a managed print solution”, so it's not just for the hardware, but also for a variety of professional services' elements that aren't being bid and competed as part of this process, but will be part of the award. Hence my comment around where there's mystery, there's margin.
I've worked in the industry for 30-plus years, primarily in Canada, but also in the U.K. and the U.S. In some ways, this structure will allow the three successful proponents, if there are that many, to add price flexibility and margin attainment through the professional services piece and to no longer compete as aggressively on the price of the hardware. Their goal is—and will be stated I'm sure—“this will allow us to control, centralize, and drive cost savings for the government”. However, in our experience, while that might work in a private sector model—large global companies with command and control can do that—in a decentralized decision-making environment such as your departments and agencies, it's fraught with difficulty and not prone to success.