NSW loses another datacentre suitor

Another contestant has withdrawn from the NSW Government tender process, which is seeking a vendor to help it consolidate 130 datacentres into two.

Five shortlisted groups had been tendering to provide capacity in two datacentres situated in Sydney and the Illawarra. The contract looks to span a 10-year period with two five-year extension options.

An expression of interest document was released in 2009, with the government expressing hopes of choosing a vendor in time for a 2010 start to the project and aiming for completion this year.

However, a shortlist of parties which could respond to a request for tender was only released in July last year, and towards the end of 2010 Plenary Group pulled out of the running.

Now another contender, Gresham, has also exited the fold, according to the NSW tender site, as outed by the AustralianIT, which placed Gresham as the financial player behind a bid including Telstra, Technical Real Estate, Hurley Palmer Flatt and AGL.

The withdrawal of Gresham leaves three bidders: Global Switch Property, Leighton Contractors and Macquarie Capital Group.

Gresham had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing. The NSW Department of Services and Technology Administration said that it "is not commenting on the tender process while it remains open".