Aviva divvies up former HP contract

Financial services giant Aviva Australia has started to sign key ICT services contracts as it breaks up a larger outsourcing deal formerly held by Hewlett-Packard.

A spokesperson for local integrator Data#3 confirmed in an e-mail to ZDNet Australia this afternoon that it had been awarded a network services deal to support Aviva's local and wide area networks.

ZDNet Australia understands Getronics in turn has won a service desk and desktop PC services contract, although a spokesperson for the company could not immediately confirm the arrangement. Getronics will provide on-site staff to support the Aviva contract.

A spokesperson for Aviva had not commented by the time of publication.

Aviva's move comes as BRW last week reported that the financial services specialist would not renew a three-year outsourcing deal with Hewlett-Packard when it expired this November.

Aviva chief operating officer Grant Salmon was reported to have said his company expected the desktop, service desk and network components of that deal to be farmed out to different suppliers by this month, with management of Aviva's server farm to be brought in-house.

Sources claimed the transition to the new arrangement was due to be completed on 1 November this year. However, this could not confirmed before publication.

BRW's report said Aviva spends more than AU$30 million a year on computing and communications.

Sources also claimed Independent Systems Integrators (ISI) had a contract with Aviva for mainframe services, although a spokesperson for the integrator could not immediately confirm such an arrangement. Aviva is believed to buy telecommunications services from Telstra.

Aviva Australia is composed of a number of companies providing, among other things, insurance and funds management services. The group claims more than 300,000 customers Down Under, and is part of the global Aviva group, which claims to be the world's sixth-largest insurer.