HP desktop and notebooks for the military

Aug 20, 2007 13:51 GMT  ·  By

Government contracts to supply computer hardware parts and whole machines to different branches of the armed forces are treated like a gold mine by most computer hardware manufacturers and vendors, as the military establishment has a list of specific needs and is able and willing to pay prime prices in order to get their needs fulfilled.

One of the most important computer hardware manufacturers in the whole world, HP, today announced that the United States Air Force (USAF for short) has selected it to supply desktop and notebook computer systems as part of the quarterly computer purchase program. According to the company's press release concerning this event, HP was selected as the " ?Best Value Vendor? for the desktops and laptops categories by the USAF?s Information Technology Commodity Council, which includes representatives from all of the USAF?s major commands".

HP will provide the USAF with two of its computer systems: the HP Compaq dc5750 Business Desktop PC which comes in a small form factor and microtower and the HP Compaq tc4400 Tablet PC. "We are proud that the U.S. Air Force continues to count on HP for top performance and value when fulfilling its computing needs," said Sami Zarzour, vice president, Public Sector Volume Sales, HP. "HP looks forward to building on our longstanding relationship with the service by offering the products, solutions and services it needs to manage its complex IT requirements." The desktop computer system comes equipped with an AMD processor Athlon 64 X2 4000+ built using the dual core technology, 1Gb of system memory, an integrated graphics solution from ATI and 80Gb SATA hard disk drives. Additionally, an optical drive is included that can range from a simple CD reader to a DVD burner.

The laptop system selected, the HP Compaq tc4400 Tablet PC, is based on Intel's Core 2 Duo T5600 processor that runs at a clock speed of 1.83GHz and has 2MB of L2 of cache memory and a 667MHz frontside bus. System memory is represented by a single 512MB DDR2 memory module, while the dedicated video memory amounts to 128MB. Storage capabilities are represented by an 80GB hard disk drive that uses the SATA interface and has 5400rpm. The current contract is not the only one signed between Hp and the USAF, as in October 2004, HP was awarded a "five-year blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to provide desktops, laptops and servers (DLS) under the provisions of the Air Force PC strategy. That DLS BPA provides HP an opportunity to bid on the Air Force?s quarterly enterprise buys (QEB) for computer systems."