Fujitsu scores $25m NBN desktop deal

Technology giant Fujitsu has secured its second deal with the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) worth up to $25 million to provide desktop support services to NBN Co staff for the next three years.

As the NBN roll-out plows on across Australia, and the company expands into a number of new regional offices, Fujitsu will be charged with providing end-user technology services for NBN Co staff.

The NBN Co workforce has seen tremendous growth in the two years since the company was founded; last week, at the Agile Australia conference in Sydney, NBN Co revealed that its staff base had expanded to approximately 825 employees. The company has already inked a deal with virtualisation company Citrix to implement the vendor's XenDesktop virtual desktop solution for it employees.

Steve Christian, NBN Co head of Operations, said that the company was pleased to add Fujitsu to the list of companies working to support the operations of the $35.9 billion project.

"After just two years, NBN Co has established a number of key supplier relationships and put in place most of the major components for the roll-out and future operation of the business," he said

Last month, Fujitsu scored its first deal with the company to provide fibre to greenfields housing developments. However, the deal may be affected by an amendment to the legislation underlying the greenfields roll-out proposed by shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Under Turnbull's proposal, housing developers could pay a fibre provider of their choice to install pits, ducts and fibre to the housing development and then be compensated by NBN Co. According to Turnbull, this could placate concerned fibre developers, and would also provide greater certainty for housing developers, who could have the fibre installed when they needed it, rather than relying on NBN Co.

NBN Co also recently signed deals with Silcar for the initial phase of construction of the NBN, and Ericsson to provide fixed wireless services for those not receiving NBN fibre or satellite services.