The U.S. State Department, which was considering a $16.5-million no-bid contract with Amazon to provide Kindles, content and services for overseas language programs, has officially withdrawn its proposal, saying it “intends to conduct additional market research and reexamine its requirements for this program.”

Gary Price at Library Journal’s Infodocket blog first discovered the notice about the withdrawal of the contract, which was posted to the State Department’s website August 15 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

A State Department spokesperson provided the following statement:

The Department of State continues to pursue technology that enhances our ability to provide international audiences with relevant, real-time content on U.S. society, culture, and English language learning.  In order to conduct additional market research and further explore technological options for our public diplomacy programs, the Department of State opted on August 15 to end the Request for Proposals for the Amazon Kindle in favor of proceeding with a Request for Information (RFI) process. This action will open to all vendors the opportunity to respond to the Department’s requirements for a mobile learning program.

The contract that the State Department was considering in June would have provided 2,500 Kindle Touches in the first year, preloaded with 50 titles apiece, at a guaranteed $2.29 million, with the option to renew the contract for four more years. The upper limit on the five-year contract was 7,000 Kindles per year. State Department spokesman Philippe Reines suggested to me at the time that many of the books would be in the public domain (i.e., free) and that other services would include preloading content and shipping devices.

If the contract had gone through and was renewed for a total of five years, and if State had purchased a total of 35,000 Kindle Touch 3Gs each priced at $170.10 (a 10 percent discount) during that time, each with a case and adapter valued at $20, that would have left $9,846,500 for content, shipping and “associate costs.”

It appeared that the deal would take place, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in June that they would hold a joint press conference to announce the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative. Then the State Department postponed the press conference to an unspecified later date. It never took place.

The National Federation of the Blind filed a complaint with the State Department saying that any agreement to purchase devices that are inaccessible to the blind is a violation of the law, but it is unclear whether the complaint had any bearing on the deal’s failure.

In the press release sent out on Friday afternoon, the program was described as a “public-private partnership with Amazon and the U.S. government” designed to create “a global e-reader program that introduces aspects of U.S. society and culture directly to young people, students, and international audiences in new ways and expands English language learning opportunities worldwide.”

I have asked the State Department why the event was postponed and will update this post when I hear back. Update: State Department spokesman Philippe Reines says the event had to be postponed due to Clinton’s schedule at the G-20 Mexico Summit and Rio+20 conference this week.

Here’s the full e-mail sent to press:

Please be informed that The Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative event scheduled for this Wednesday, June 20th has now been postponed until a later date.

We apologize for any inconvenience. Please do not hesitate to contact us at ProtocolRSVP@state.gov if you have any questions.

Earlier today, Marc Maurer, the president of the National Federation for the Blind, sent a letter to Hillary Clinton stating that because e-readers are not accessible to the blind, “any agreement by the United States to procure inaccessible Kindle, or other, e-readers is a violation of the law, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.” Infodocket has the full letter. It’s unclear whether the letter is the reason the event was postponed. In 2009, the NFB and other advocacy organizations for people who are blind sued public universities over pilot projects that would bring the Kindle to classrooms. Those cases, litigated by the United States Department of Justice, settled in early 2010.

Last week, State’s no-bid contract with Amazon became public. State spokesman Philippe Reines told me on Wednesday that the contract wasn’t official yet and that State was waiting for Amazon’s response to its proposal. Reines told me on Friday that “there’s no deal,” still just a pilot program. “Amazon has to respond. The two sides need to work out details. The event isn’t to announce a deal. It’s to talk about the initiative.”

According to the information we have so far, the State Department would spend $2.29 million in the first year of the program, including a purchase of 2,500 Kindles, and the maximum cost of the program over five years would be $16.5 million, including a maximum of 7,000 Kindles per year. As I reported last week, the potential program’s non-device costs are substantial but we don’t know yet which e-books will be preloaded on the Kindles.

See also

State Department speaks out on Amazon Kindle deal

Why is the U.S. State Department paying Amazon $16.5 million for Kindles?

Update, 6/15/2012, 6:07 PM: It appears the deal will go through, as Jeff Bezos and Hillary Clinton are holding a press conference to announce the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative next Wednesday. more here

On Monday, I reported that the U.S. State Department was signing a $16.5 million agreement with Amazon to provide Kindles, content and service for overseas English language programs. Yesterday I was able to get on the phone with State spokesman Philippe Reines, who explained more about how the program will work and clarified some things that aren’t included in the available public documents. Some questions remain unanswered, and I’ve listed those at the end of this post.

Nothing is signed yet

First off, the State Department hasn’t yet signed a contract with Amazon. This document, Reines told me, is a request for proposal (RFP), though a reader points out that it is not labeled as such in the database — rather, it’s labeled as a Justification & Approval (J&A), intended to explain why this is a sole-source contract. I’m referring to it as a J&A throughout this piece. “At this point the ball is in Amazon’s court to come back with a proposal to us based on the request we gave them,” he said.

“We basically said, ‘We’d like your proposal to reflect the possibility of it being a five-year deal, with the total amount spent over this five years as $16.5 million,’” Reines said. He says “that’s not an expression by State of an intent to spend all that money and certainly not an obligation to spend all that money.”

Substantial non-device costs

Reines said that the State Department would spend $2.29 million in the first year of the program, and ”the $16.5 million over five years includes a maximum of 7,000 units per year for a total of 35,000 over five years, and content and to a lesser degree, shipping and some other associate costs.” Those associate costs, like pushing serialized content to those Kindles, are mentioned in my original piece.

The $2.29 million figure for the first year, and the 7,000-per-year cap, are not available in any public documents online. I asked Reines for documentation of those figures and he said it “might be an internal thing.”

Reines added that the “guaranteed obligation of $2.29 million” in the first year is “broken down by an obligation to purchase, at minimum, 2,500 units, which would be roughly half a million dollars.” The ad-free Kindle Touch 3G — specified in the J&A as the device that State would purchase — is $189. The J&A also says each Kindle should come with a power adapter and a case. Assuming that State gets a 10 percent discount on each device, as Reines told the Atlantic, and that the power adapter + case adds another $20 to each device, that’s $475,250 for Kindles.

That leaves $1,814,750 for content, shipping and other costs. It’s a lot of money for content, especially since it appears that many of the e-books will be public domain. See more below.

If the contract goes through and is renewed after the base year for a total of five years, and if State purchases a total of 35,000 Kindle Touch 3Gs each priced at $170.10 during that time and each with a case and adapter valued at $20, that leaves $9,846,500 for content, shipping and “associate costs.”

What content comes preloaded on the Kindles?

According to the J&A, Amazon would preload each Kindle with 50 e-books.

In a previous pilot program, State purchased 6,000 Kindles for $984,000. That cost included only Kindles and not content, and Reines said the pilot included Kindles of “mixed variety,” not just the Kindle Touch 3G. This time around, “Amazon is doing the backbone work, so it’s not like we have 6,000 units around the world and everyone’s got to sit and download ‘Huckleberry Finn,’” Reines said.

So what kinds of books would Amazon be asked to preload on the Kindles? This is an important question because if most of the content that will be preloaded is already free in the public domain, as “Huckleberry Finn” is, that should bring content costs for this program down. I asked Reines for a list of the 50 books that would be preloaded on the Kindles and I hope to have that document soon.

For now, my impression from talking to Reines is that most of the books included on the Kindles would be in the public domain. ”I don’t have a whole lot of examples of the past but I wasn’t entirely joking when I said Huck Finn,” Reines told me. “It’s stuff like that.”

Some remaining questions

Why is information still being doled out selectively? One surprise for me in reporting this story was that all the relevant documents were not available online. The State Department released  some information — such as that it could buy a maximum of 35,000 Kindles over a 5-year contract, and that the amount paid to Amazon in the first year would be a guaranteed $2.29 million — to news outlets, but these figures are still not available publicly. It’s difficult to report accurately when this information is not available for original reporting. I’m still seeking a copy of the document that lays these figures out.

Do all the devices have to have 3G if they’re being sent to countries that don’t have 3G networks? State’s J&A requires 3G; Reines suggested that State would actually order a mix of models as it did in its pilot program.

Could State negotiate a larger discount than 10% on the Kindles?

Are the non-device costs justified? I’m still waiting to find out which content will be preloaded onto the Kindles — whether it is primarily free, public domain books as Reines suggested, or whether Amazon will have to buy some of the books or make deals with publishers — and I look forward to receiving that list.

As for the various shipping and customer-service functions that Amazon would provide, as outlined by the J&A, I’m not able to calculate the value of those services with the information that’s available publicly. I don’t know how much it costs Amazon to provide a dedicated help desk, disable some features on the Kindles and provide data reports on usage, but I remain skeptical that these services are worth millions of dollars.