The largest X-terminal contract ever awarded, part of the massive $1,600m Reserve Component Automation System contract just let by the US Army, should have gone to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (yes, really, it exists: we’ve been there!) Human Designed Systems Inc acting as a subcontractor to Boeing Co, the primary contractor – but now the award is under appeal from losing bidder Computer Sciences Corp. Under the Reserve Component pact, Human Designed will be supplying the Army National Guard and the US Army Reserve with close to 60,000 terminals over the next 30 months at a value to the company in excess of $70m. The award, if it stands, could catapault Human, a privately held $10m-a-year company now in the number six spot, into top position as the industry’s volume leader. Computer Sciences Corp, which bid ANSII terminals and undercut Boeing but still lost the bid, immediately protested the award. Arrangements for a hearing are under way, but Boeing could not say whether deliveries, set to start right away, would be halted. Unlike many government contracts which are little more than hunting licences for the winners and are thus designated IDIQ or Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, Human said its contract was FFP or Firm, Fixed Price meaning that there was no question how many boxes would be delivered. The award, whose quantities equal all the X-terminals shipped last year according to International Data Corp and Dataquest figures, represents another watershed for X-terminals, Human said, in that the units are not replacing workstations and will be used for office automation, a commercial application that could easily have gone to personal computers. Uniplex Ltd, which is supplying the software, could thus be another big winner as may be Digital Equipment Corp with its DECsystems and Zenith Data Systems with its 80486 boxes running Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s Open Desktop. The award is reputed to be the largest of several US government contracts currently pending. If the recent $1,400m Treasury award is overturned, Human, whose terminals are also being bid by the protestors IBM Corp and Lockheed Corp could also stand to benefit. Human said Boeing chose its terminals over those from Network Computing Devices Inc, Tektronix Inc and others because of their unique modularity and price-performance.
