"For organisations that buy PCs in large volumes, a dollar saving between two systems with comparable performance could be worth tens of thousands of dollars in total. That's why organisations that value neutrality, independence, and ease of use choose PCMark."
European Union
The Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT) defines the IT strategy of the European Commission, providing the EC and, when appropriate, other European institutions and bodies with IT infrastructure solutions and services. One of the main tasks of DIGIT's Procurement and Contracts unit is to acquire computer and telecommunications products and services for the Commission Directorates-General and departments. The unit also issues invitations to tender on behalf of the administration in Brussels.
In 2014, DIGIT issued an invitation to tender for the supply of desktop computers to the European Parliament and more than 50 other European Agencies, Bodies, and Centres located in over 20 member countries. DIGIT used PCMark benchmark scores to define minimum performance requirements for the supply of an estimated 87,100 reference PC configurations and 15,900 specific purpose PCs.
Germany
Bitkom is a German IT trade association that represents over 2,300 international companies in the digital sector. Working with the purchasing authorities of several German ministries and agencies, Bitkom publishes guidelines for the vendor-neutral performance description of desktop PCs. Bitkom's guidelines specify the use of PCMark 8 benchmark scores to define the minimum performance requirement for desktops PCs to be used by office workers for administrative tasks.
France
In France, L'union des groupements d'achat public (UGAP) is the public procurement and purchasing centre responsible for awarding contracts for services and supplies for authorities and entities subject to the public procurement code. When UGAP completed the tendering process for the supply of 60,000 PCs, they used PCMark to specify the minimum acceptable level of system performance.
Northern Ireland
The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) employs 18,000 administrative staff across 11 departments. IT Assist, the NICS ICT Shared Service Centre, provides common infrastructure and desktop services to NICS staff in the office, at home or when mobile working. IT Assist specified PCMark performance requirements in its tendering process for the contract to supply the Northern Ireland Civil Service with more than 20,000 PCs and laptops.
Brazil
In Brazil, the implementation and monitoring of procurement, tenders and contracts is managed by the Secretaria de Logística e Tecnologia da Informação (SLTI). The SLTI mandated minimum PCMark benchmark scores as a measure of system performance when purchasing computers for the Federal Government of Brazil, a tender covering more than 61,000 desktop PCs and 13,000 notebooks.
