CSC, Lockheed drop out of ATO deal

CSC Australia and Lockheed Martin have pulled themselves out of the running for the Australian Taxation Office's centralised computing contract.

Their withdrawal leaves only incumbent HP Enterprise Services, formerly known as EDS, and IBM to fight for the deal. The agency has valued it at around $160 million a year.

According to the ATO, both companies said the move "was based on a business decision to focus their efforts for the Tax Office on the [end-user computing] tender process and on other business opportunities".

There had been a change of plans on the centralised computing contract in July this year, when the ATO extended EDS's contract for the bundle at the cost of $604 million, saying that feedback from vendors had shown it would take longer than expected to transition the datacentre services to another vendor.

CSC and Lockheed are still going ahead with their bids to win the end-user contract for which they were shortlisted last month. EDS and Kaz missed out.

The tender for the centralised computing bundle closes on 25 February 2010.