Fuzzy Vic Ed/Acer Numbers

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

This report is at 
http://www.it.fairfax.com.au/981027/hardware/hardware1.html

Acer's promise of $15m in R&D 
By GARRY BARKER 

VICTORIA'S IT and multimedia industries expect to get up to
$15million a year from Acer Computer as a result of a massive
contract reached with the Education Department for the supply of
notebook computers to state school teachers.

Precisely where Acer will spend that money is not yet defined. The
agreement gives Victoria "first right of refusal" of the money that
Acer
will spend on research and development, manufacturing, software
development and multimedia production.

Two companies, Acer and Apple, share the $100 million contract to
supply a total of 37,000 notebook machines over the next five years.
....

<brd>
I really ought to stop taking these press releases seriously, but
for a moment lets suppose it's real.

This seems to be a $100million contract over five years, shared by
two companies.

Let's assume that Acer gets half, ie $50million over 5 years or
$10m/yr

Now, in return, Acer will spend $15m per year on R&D in Victoria.

So, the Education spends $10m/yr and Acer does $15m/yr in R&D. Oh
yeah? 

Is this discrepency because:

a) it is a beat up by the Education Department
b) there is an error in the press release
c) I did not pay close enough attention to the words "... expect to
get up to $15million a year"

Of course, silly me. The Education Department can expect all they
like and anyway it only says "up to".

So Acer spends (say) 100k/yr.

Commitment met - The Ed Dept expected more (but you cannot be held
responsible for what someone expects, not without a contract. I
wonder if there is one of those. But I doubt it would be available
because of that wonderful concept that governments can hide behind -
commercial-in-confidence) and it was less than $15m.

That's why the Feds are trying to tie down their Industry
Development agreements by the use of contracts. Unfortunately that's
full of holes and has hidden minefields for both parties.

Getting Industry Development right looks like it's stretching the
abilities of both State and Federal pollies.

-- 
All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American
are spent by the government in less than a second. 
-- unknown

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd@dynamite.com.au