SA govt finalises EDS replacements

The South Australian state government has finalised the first round of new ICT select sourcing deals as it carves up its massive 10-year outsourcing contract with Texan giant Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

The state recently named Hewlett-Packard, Volante (owned by Commander) and EDS as successful bidders for work supplying distributed computing services over the next three years. The contracts allow the three to compete for government agency work potentially worth more than AU$120 million in total and represent the last under Tranche 1 of the state's Future ICT Services Arrangements program.

South Australia's Infrastructure Minister Patrick Conlon hailed the Tranche 1 completion as enabling the state to exit its long-running but troubled relationship with EDS.

In a recent statement, Conlon said the total value of all contracts signed so far -- of which distributed computing services is part -- was AU$536 million, or an average of AU$164 million per year, representing savings of AU$30 million each annum.

"The outcomes have vindicated the Government's decision not to continue with a single, large scale, all-encompassing deal, such as that struck with EDS," he said. "The Government's approach has been to selectively source its ICT goods and services from best-of-breed suppliers, with a focus on services and value for money, and the results speak for themselves."

Despite this, Conlon acknowledged EDS had continued to win new business with the state, equating to around 50 percent of the Texan's previous revenue.

In a statement issued to the Australian Stock Exchange this morning, Commander claimed the distributed computing contract allowed it to bid for up to AU$144 million of work over the next three years.

However, South Australia's contracts reporting system disclosed the value of the work available through EDS's distributed systems deal at AU$121.5 million over three and a half years until 30 June 2010.

South Australia is believed to be currently negotiating with suppliers for work under Tranche 2 of Future ICT, with a number of tenders in the telecommunications area released in June 2006.

So far, South Australia has announced contract wins in the following areas under the Future ICT Services Arrangements program:

Services

• Distributed computing support: EDS, HP and Volante (Commander)
• Government radio network upgrade: Telstra
• Internet: Internode
• Mainframe: EDS
• Managed network: Dimension Data
• Messaging and anti-spam: Telstra
• Reseller: Commander/Volante, Comunet, Dimension Data
• PABX maintenance and support: NEC

Equipment and software

• Active devices: Cisco
• Antivirus software: Computer Associates, McAfee and Trend Micro
• Digital handsets and PABX components: NEC
• Mid-range servers and associated software: Sun Microsystems
• Notebooks: Acer and Dell
• PCs: Dell, HP and Volante (Commander)
• Photocopiers: Canon, Fuji-Xerox, Kyocera-Mita and Ricoh
• Printers: HP, Kyocera-Mita and Ricoh
• Servers: HP
• Other software: Checkpoint, Citrix, Ingres, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle