About this Group
After a successful trial in collaborative Licensing, the CIC
CIOs have charged a Task Force to look further into collaborative
purchasing and licensing in IT. Leveraging purchasing power on
various software and hardware is approached on a case by case
basis by the Task Force.
Following the successful group licensing and purchasing activity
of the Center for Library Initiatives Consortial Purschasing Program
and the CIC Purchasing Consortium, the CIC Chief Information Officers
charged the Licensing Task Force to conduct a trial collaborative
licensing activity in the area of information technology software
and/or hardware. The Task Force was asked to study the issue,
pursue a few licenses as a trial, evaluate the savings, and write
a report by June 2001 recommending the next course of action after
this trial period. This activity is characterized as a study because
it is not clear that the information technology software and hardware
marketplace is conducive to the same margin of savings and ability
to negotiate groups deals that the Library Directors have recognized
with licensing access to databases, or the Purchasing Directors
have recognized with group discounts on paper and scientific supplies.
In January 2001, the Task Force made a proposal to the CIO's
to pursue a project with the assistance of the CIC Purchasing
Consortium.
At their March 2001 meeting, the CIO's authorized the Task Force
to pursue collaborative site licenses in the area of anti-virus
software.
After much discussion and negotiation, a proposal was submitted
by Symantec for anti-virus software in the fall of 2001. Eight
of the thirteen CIC CIOs' institutions participated in the collaborative
purchase resulting in over 150,000 licenses purchased from Symantec.
The collective savings of the participating institutions was over
$500,000. The Task Force conducted a review of the process and
evaluated the success of this trail purchase. Recommendations
for future efforts in collaborative licensing and purchasing are
outlined in the Licensing Task Force Final Report on Anti-virus
Software.
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