County OKs multi-year Microsoft and VMware agreements totaling roughly $8.95 million

The Adams County Board of Commissioners approved two cooperative, multi-year IT agreements on March 25: a three-year Microsoft enterprise licensing agreement through Insight Public Sector ($7,772,810.73) and a three-year VMware services agreement ($1,177,538.76) to support on-premises virtualization and data-center services.

Jason Schultz, director of information technology and innovation, told the board that roughly 90% of the county’s technology environment depends on Microsoft products — operating systems, desktops, servers, email, collaboration, storage, security tools and development environments — and that the requested three-year, G3-to-G5 upgrade would add security, compliance and analytics functionality. Schultz summarized the three-year Microsoft total ($7,772,810.73) and cited an annualized cost of approximately $2,590,936.91 (about $809 per staff member per year).

Schultz also presented a three-year cooperative agreement for VMware licensing after Broadcom’s 2023 acquisition of VMware and the vendor’s move to subscription pricing. He said the VMware agreement (three-year total roughly $1,177,538.76) will continue to support the county’s on-premises virtualization layer, backups, disaster recovery and high-availability services. Schultz said the county is evaluating cloud migration over time and will reassess the mix of on-premises and cloud services at the end of the contract term.

Commissioners asked about committing to a three-year subscription and whether the county will still have flexibility as cloud options evolve; Schultz said three-year cooperative agreements are standard for enterprise infrastructure and staff will reassess at contract renewal.

Both motions to approve were moved and seconded on the record; the VMware motion concluded with an explicit recorded vote of 5–0 in favor. No dissent was recorded in the Microsoft presentation and the board proceeded with approval.