My rant about this subject:

With my organization (K-12 Education), if the IT department chooses the vendor, we do as you do; research, test, compare, do an RFP maybe and get the best product for our dollar. We do get to purchase what WE select.

However, even though we have a policy to not aquire software or systems without IT's approval, other departments choose a vendor with no thought process what so ever. Sometimes it is "free" software. Of course, we all know nothing is actually free. Free still means support costs, equipment costs, and IT time spent getting the "free" software functioning. Sometimes they just purchase an appication they read about, without any proof of it actually affecting student performance or getting us to research the product, then run in our office and want us to "install this program on the server." They have no idea what actually goes into getting a system or application functioning and we do not get any support from higher levels to tell them NO.

Also, vendors are tricky. They get into State Education representative's pockets and convince them to give school district's some "free" moneys for a particular program, however the catch is you have to contract with a that vendor, get their application, and then get caught in a reccuring contract that ends up costing the school distrcit more money in the long run. Then there are also the implementaion costs - the less a product costs, the more it seems to cost to get it functioning!

Holly