Samsung bags Hartron's 171 printers tender

As a direct impact of news about 'Winning tenders and
plummeting price points' published in The DQ Week recently, Hartron, Haryana's
nodal agency for procuring IT hardware and software in the state went in for
another round of negotiations and has awarded the 171 printers contract to
Samsung. As a result of this, HP has lost out on the tender because of the lower
price point offered by Samsung on this.

"There was this second round of negotiation, which
happened some days back and there we decided to give this contract to Samsung
because it is giving us a better L1 now. As a result of this, we would not be
taking the printers from HP for this tender," informed a source close to
the Haryana government on conditions of anonymity.

Consequently, Chandigarh-based DS Dataspec will now deliver
171 Samsung's 4,100 multi-functional printers for Hartron's project to
provide the same to different schools spread all across the state. Earlier it
was HP that was being awarded the contract and Chandigarh-based Alfa Electronics
was likely to provide HP printers for the same project.

While for organizations like Hartron, this could be a usual
process of finalizing a number of tenders that are decided on L1. However, the
issue does highlight the huge price parity between what is sold to end customers
and what usually gets quoted for a segment like government.

As it was in case of HP, the price difference between the
Samsung's 4100 multi-functional printer's market operating price (MoP) and
the quoted price for this tender is quite big. "This printer is available
for Rs 10,990 while for this tender the L1 came out for Rs 5,999 only,"
informed a source on conditions of anonymity.

Earlier in the month, it was reported in The DQ Week that HP is on the verge
of winning the same contract as the company quoted its 3010 model for Rs 7,500.
"This report came out just at the right moment and Hartron called in for
another round of negotiations. I think that the story had compelled them to
think about further negotiating with the vendors," explained a prominent
channel player from Chandigarh.