ACMA, DEWHA get new IT suppliers

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) have both recently signed on new vendors to take over their formerly Commander-led managed services contracts.

We aim to lead by example, to be the first in the Australian Government to specify a green focus as part of its information technology services contract.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett

ACMA signed with Logica in a five-year $10 million deal for the provision of LAN desktop services and support to the Authority's 540 staff in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney as well as supporting remote staff.

Of the original cross agency Group 8 contract with Commander this was only one part, with the agency already having tendered out telephony to Optus and Alphawest, WAN services to AAPT and video-conferencing to Dimension Data, according to Michael Searle, ACMA project manager for the LAN Desktop outsourcing project.

"Logica was able to provide a team with proven ITIL skills and an inherent understanding of both the job required and a vision of where they could take our organisation's IT requirements. We concluded Logica was the best value for money across a range of selection criteria," Searle said in a statement.

DEWHA confirmed former speculation that it was going to sign its IT services over to Datacom Systems which will have a "green focus", according to Environment Minister Peter Garrett speaking today at the Business Leaders Forum.

"You will be pleased to hear that a new era of sustainability is happening with my own department, as we aim to lead by example, to be the first in the Australian Government to specify a green focus as part of its information technology services contract," he said.

He said Datacom met environmental standards and that its Sydney datacentre was looking at a reciprocal arrangement with a nearby swimming pool where the centre's waste energy could heat the pool water, which in turn could cool the building. "It's a classic example of waste recovery," Garrett said.

The deal was worth $72 million over five years.

The contracts are currently being serviced by CSG who had bought $60 million worth of managed services contracts from Commander after that company went into administration.

However, a cross agency contract called Group 8 was set to be wrapped up on 26 June and was out to tender when CSG acquired it, which meant that it could not have a tilt at keeping them.

The losses have meant that the firm has to let go of 100 staff in Canberra.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) was the first to officially replace CSG with the now HP-owned EDS for its $96 million five-year contract providing help desk, desktop, mid-range servers, LAN and storage mangement.

CASA has also already signed a new vendor, ASG Group, for its $8 million managed services contract