In Kuzbass, the auction recently ended for a lot worth almost 140 million rubles. for the supply of equipment “for educational organizations within the framework of the implementation of the federal projects “Digital Educational Environment” and “Modern School” of the national project “Education””. The tender was held by the Ministry of Education of Kuzbass. Of the three applications, two were found to not meet the requirements, the remaining application won – the Kemerovo company Concord LLC undertook to supply the required number of laptops and interactive panels to regional educational institutions for 138 million rubles. – very small price reduction. The situation when a single participant is allowed to participate in a tender is quite common for Russia, but specifically in this tender they attract attention requirements for procurement objects, namely laptops. Thus, a “Type 1” laptop must have at least 10 (ten) built-in USB ports, a “Type 2” laptop must have at least 6. The country of origin of both devices is the Russian Federation.
Rhetorical questions: 1. What does a laptop with ten USB ports look like? 2. What a working laptop with ten USB ports looks like with ten USB devices connected at the same time. 3. List 10 USB devices that a school teacher will need to simultaneously connect to a laptop. 4. How do those who sign such requirements for laptops feel and how do they justify such requirements?
In fact, there are more questions, and it’s really interesting to look at the physical embodiment of such devices. Perhaps they even work normally – and then it will be interesting to get acquainted with the engineers who developed such devices, and with the production in which these devices are produced. But it’s quite difficult to imagine a situation where someone—let alone a school teacher—needs 10, or even 6, USB ports. You rarely see 4 USB ports on all modern laptops. Obviously, these are absolutely synthetic requirements that have nothing to do with real tasks, but which cut off manufacturers of normal devices.
The fight for budgets surrounding any national projects is serious. Manufacturers, in pursuit of tenders, mercilessly dump at their own loss. As a result, we get a not very happy picture both for the IT market as a whole, and for the national project “Education” itself: for the meager money for which suppliers and/or manufacturers promise to deliver goods, it is unlikely that it will be possible to produce a high-quality device. But Russian teachers then have to work on these devices and teach Russian children.
In order not to win tenders at a loss, especially “advanced” tender participants come up with such schemes: you just need to specify in the tender the conditions for specific performers, which will cut off the “wrong” manufacturers. What conditions might these be? For example, increase the number of USB ports. We won’t be surprised if “laptops” with twenty ports appear soon. Or maybe they have already appeared – you need to properly study the government procurement website. It’s sad that all these wonderful phrases – “Digital educational environment”, “Modern school” – turn into a pumpkin.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
