This one's interesting to us because Washington State University is only about ten miles away from the Populi office... and because the numbers are so huge. According to this story in WSU's Daily Evergreen (the campus newspaper), the University is about to embark on a two-year, $15 million project to upgrade the "core information systems" to make things like the course catalog and student accounts accessible to students. One Michael Corwin, formerly of the University of Texas, will pull down $140,000 a year overseeing the project. Previously, the University had requested $1 million to "study their options".

We looked at our pricing page and roughed out some numbers for the 25,000+ student University. Figuring they'd go for the "Large" pricing plan, WSU could have Populi for about $1.3 million a year, and in 11 years, they would have spent what they're spending just to get their new system set up.

Now, we're not exactly aiming Populi at the State University market, but we did want to share our "same-planet-different-worlds" moment with y'all... especially that request for a million bucks just to study the options. We're sure Mr. Corwin's gonna earn his salary, and we're willing to admit that $15 million will get you some software... but 1,000,000 clams just to see what's out there? Astonishing.