Rudd's dept flags ICT outsourcing deals
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has gone to tender for core ICT services and telephony management services contracts which together could be worth over $26 million.
(Parliament House image by Eugene Regis, CC2.0)
The contracts for core ICT services and telephony services will be for three years with the possibility of extension for two more three-year terms to make a total of nine years. The successful applicants will provide services to 1700 users across the country at locations such as the Prime Minister's head office, Kirribilli house in Sydney and the Lodge in Canberra
The core ICT services provider will deliver IT service desk, ITIL service management, desktop management as well as local area network and server support. The vendor supplying telephony management services will carry out support services for switchboard, desktop telephony, mobile telephony, teleconference and video-conferencing, wide area connectivity and telephony invoice and billing management.
The department and its affiliated offices and agencies has 1243 desktops, 631 laptops and 175 printers, but only 35 physical servers.
The IT support part of the contract has until now been held by ASG Group. It had originally been won by Exceed Systems which became an ASG subsidiary in late 2004. Exceed had signed the contract with the department in March 2004.
The current value of that ASG contract stands at $22 million after being increased three times to add scope to the services provided, such as bringing the Department of Climate Change, the National Water Commission and Old Parliament House under its umbrella.
The telephony management services portion has been held by Optus since 2004 and was worth $4 million after scope increases. Both contracts expire 30 June 2010.
The vendors have to work together with other hardware, software and telephony providers which already provide products to the department. They may also have to plan in the support of the CABNET system which is a system for Cabinet documents, previously supported by the Department of Finance and Deregulation. An upgrade of this system is planned for next year.