TotaKeep reading  governmentwide transparency on pricing for information technology products could have unintended consequences, said a senior acquisition official.

Today, federal agencies have access to the catalog-list prices companies charge through governmentwide acquisition vehicles (GWAC). Although those catalog prices are negotiated with price fairness in mind – to ensure the amounts are comparable to commercial prices – agencies often pay less than list when executing orders of any significance.

That disconnect between the catalog price being the de facto maximum price, rather than the actual price, has led to efforts to record actual prices and share that information between federal agencies.

Rob Coen, acting director of the National Institutes of Health Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center, told an audience of federal officials and private sector sellers that his agency is setting up a dashboard that will permit customers to “see what other agencies are buying, who’s buying what, who they are buying it from and what they are paying.” NIH runs three governmentwide acquisition contracts, contract vehicles dedicated to IT products or services and meant for inter-departmental use.

The General Services Administration is also developing a “Price Paid Tool,” an online portal currently in proof of concept stage.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/information-technology-price-transparency-could-come-cost/2014-03-25