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Franklin County approves $86,421 phone-hardware purchase as part of Microsoft 365 migration
Summary
The Franklin County Board of Commissioners approved buying telephone hardware and headsets for $86,421 through CDWG to complete a migration from Google to Microsoft 365, after hearing from the county CIO about cost savings and cloud benefits.
Franklin County commissioners voted to approve purchase of telephone hardware and associated devices totaling $86,421 to complete the county’s move from Google for Government to Microsoft 365 and a cloud-based telephony system.
The purchase, approved at the board meeting after a presentation from the county’s information-technology team, will be procured from CDWG under an existing government contract. County CIO Sean Kreger told commissioners the county negotiated the price down from higher government list pricing and reduced the project’s overall cost by shifting many users from desk handsets to headsets.
Kreger said the county originally estimated about $150,000 for hardware and an additional roughly $300,000 for services if it had upgraded the existing phone system. “We were able to bring that cost down to the 86,421,” he said. He also said using headsets for roughly 340 users saved about $49,000 by avoiding more expensive desk handsets.
Kreger described operational benefits of the move: a cloud-hosted phone platform with redundancy managed by the cloud provider and fewer locally hosted servers. “Some of the major advantages we have moving to a new system is full on cloud based support, so we don't need to host servers here anymore,” he said. He also said the Microsoft subscription model is “evergreen,” meaning Microsoft continually updates features and security rather than requiring periodic full-version replacements; hardware will still require replacement when it reaches end of useful life.
The CIO said warranties are included with the equipment but did not provide specific warranty durations during the meeting and offered to supply that information later. Commissioners asked about options; Kreger said there are wired and wireless headset choices and two different desk-phone models based on job function, and that headset use would be governed by county acceptable-use policies.
The board approved the motion to buy the hardware and devices and to move forward with the implementation; the motion was moved and seconded on the record and carried.
The purchase proceeds the county’s previously approved Microsoft 365 migration work. County staff said speedy delivery capability from CDWG was a factor in vendor selection.
