The three-year, sole supplier Standing Offer Arrangement (SOA) was a direct result of the need of the Queensland Department of Employment and Training (DET) and Queensland Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) to replace all standard operating environment (SOE) servers due to a three-year replacement cycles.
"Technical advice provided to the Departments was that a single vendor arrangement, across one model, with one management system, would deliver a better total cost of ownership," said Jim Blake, senior procurement officer, Corporate Capability Development Division, Queensland DET.
"This was a key factor in our decision to select a single vendor for the SOE replacement project," Blake said in a statement.
The Queensland DET required four specific server configurations to meet the needs of the department's diverse platform, and Dell's built-to-order production model allowed customisation of each individual server, he added. Its data centre is also being migrated from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, powered by a Dell PowerEdge 2600.
Yet another government contract going to an international vendor! Surely there must be several AUSTRALIAN vendors capable of servicing this tender? It makes me sick to see our government showing such lack of support for our local industry.