Tender to buy tablet PCs expected to be held today

Ahmet CAN ANKARA - Hürriyet

The Turkish government plans to replace traditional blackboards and textbooks in schools with electronic boards and tablet PCs as a part of the Fatih project. DHA photo

The second biggest tender in the framework of the Turkish government’s Fatih project is expected to be held today. Some 675,000 tablet PCs will be acquired by the government for use in schools for around 500 million Turkish Liras.

A tender was expected to be made on Nov. 6, but then it was announced to be held today. Some 11 local and global companies are reported to take the only-printed (but not online) tender documents. The companies should submit their proposals until 11.00 a.m. today as well as presenting a sample of their tablet PCs to the board, which will be responsible for the selection of the winner.

The Turkish Education Ministry launched the tender in June for purchasing at least 10.6 million tablet PCs gradually to distribute the devices in schools as 11 companies submitted their offers.

In the first stage of the tender, which was composed by three stages, the companies’ offers, documents and sufficiency were examined. Samsung Electronic Co, Samsung Electronic Marketing and Trade, Mobiltel-Elektromet joint venture, Vestel Electronic, Casper-Exper-Probil joint venture, Apple Teknology and Sale, Telpa Telecommunication - Atmaca Elektronik joint venture, Microsoft Corp, Arçelik, Toshiba Europe, Hewlett Packard Technology Solutions reportedly submitted their offers. At the second stage, the technical talks were expected to be held. Finally, the companies which fulfilled their requirements were due to submit their last offers that included financial offers today.

Gov’t wants an R&D center in Turkey

The Turkish government plans to replace traditional blackboards and textbooks in schools with electronic boards and tablet PCs as a part of the Fatih project in order to merge education with innovative information technologies and radically transform the perception of education. Within the project, the government will purchase approximately 15 million tablets for students, administrative employees and teachers in the first stage under the Public Tenders Law, which would make any technology player’s mouth water.

One of the government’s key conditions for selecting a bidder is that the production of the tablets should be in Turkey and the producer company should establish a research and development center within Turkey’s borders. The government is also looking to give impetus to local research and development projects through the project.

The winner of the contract is expected to submit 50,000 tablet PCs next month, 100,000 next January, 250,000 next February and 275,000 next March.