Several vendors have contacted Channel News claiming that Dell does not have the experience to fulfil the contract and that the NSW Education department is now bullying Pro AV companies to sign up as installation sub contractors in an effort to fulfil the roll out of the contract.

Questions are also being asked as to why the NSW Education department extended the Connected Classroom tender deadline which resulted in two new companies ASI Solutions and DH Technology being appointed to distribute Promethean software which is used with whiteboards in a classroom environment, during the tender process.

See seperate Government tender story at this link.

The Managing Director of a major Pro AV company who is a key supplier to both the Federal and State Governments said, "The appointment of Dell is going to be a disaster. The DET people appointing Dell do not have a clue. This is one of the biggest education contracts in Australia if not the biggest. An organisation like Telstra or Unisys should have been doing this job as they have the skill set and knowledge to roll out the integration of technology into what is a massive project. I would love to talk on record but if I do we will be victimised by DET staff."

They added, "Many of the solution providers who do have the skill to implement the gear into 55,000 schools and manage the project ongoing don't want to work with Dell because when it goes wrong it is them who will be blamed not Dell".

The whiteboard teaching software which was chosen by the Education Department and is set to be used across, NSW schools will need to be installed and set up by Dell despite them never installing the software in the past.

It will also result in thousands of NSW teachers having to be trained in how to create, customise and integrate text, images, quizzes and tests, web, video and audio content, so they can capture students' attention and accommodate different learning styles.

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