Dropping from around $1,300 retail to just over $500 through consortium pricing shows how much leverage coordinated purchasing really has. It also makes sense why vendors would start backing away if their margins are getting squeezed by component spikes. At some point the math just doesn’t work.
0.00116665 BEE
No, I totally get why they need to do it, but at some level they are breaching the competitive bid contract and they have to decide which is the lesser evil for them. It's kind of a no win situation for everyone.