I spoke last night with Leslie Fiering, research vice president for Gartner Inc., a leading market research and advisory firm focusing on the information technology industry and a recognized expert in major IT acquisitions, about Idaho's $182 million laptop contract. She said lease deals are not uncommon, and said she couldn't say if it's a good deal or not for the state. "It's a really complex deal," she said. But she pointed to a plus for the state: "They have a built-in refresh," meaning the deal automatically calls for the laptops to be replaced every four years. "So that means that they're not struggling to keep old equipment going. It means that they're not scrambling to pull up capital budget every year, which could then get cut. Assuming they could keep this funded, it gives them a secure basis for operations."

She added, "I work with school districts on a regular basis who are tying themselves into knots trying to figure out how they're going to get these devices into the hands of kids."

On the down side for the state, she said, "There is liability on the accidental breakage," which Fiering said could prove "contentious." She said, "Kids are very tough on the machines. ... I used to joke that the kids were second only to the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in how rough they are on their computers, and I was corrected by the hardware manufacturers, the maintenance organizations and the school districts that I work with that I was wrong, the kids are worse than the soldiers. So I can understand why H-P did that to protect themselves."