During my career I have had the opportunity to partner and contract with numerous private corporations. In these situations I use "partnership" as the term used to describe a non-financial/non-contract-based engagement between a private company and an education organization. On the other hand, a "contract" represents a legal agreement between two entities (either public-private or public-public).
Notable partnerships that I have negotiated/facilitated include: Microsoft, Novell, JDL Technologies, Seward Inc., WCET, Northwestern College (for the eLearning/eFolio Summits) and Cisco. My work with Cisco was recognized as part of their Cisco Networking Academy program.
Notable public-private contracts negotiated include: SMARTHINKING (now part of Pearson), Avenet (which evolved into a formal public-private partnership/agreement), and RightNow (now part of Oracle).
Notable public-public contracts would include those associated with eFolioWorld operations the largest of which was our work with San Francisco State University (Ruth Cox is the project lead).