The state government has shortlisted six companies in the latest phase of its GovNext project to outsource its information and communications technology.
The state government has shortlisted six companies in the latest phase of its GovNext project to outsource its information and communications technology.
The Tenders WA website revealed Telstra, IBM Australia, Japan-owned NEC Australia, New Zealand-based company Datacom, Dimension Data Australia and French-owned company Atos Australia have been shortlisted from 73 applicants, leaving some other major names missing in action from the contract process run by the Department of Finance.
Each of the shortlisted players has won contracts from the state government worth several millions in combination. Datacom is the only Western Australia-based contender on the list. It has been a winner of a Rising Star award for fast growth businesses run by Business News.
However WA’s biggest ICT players, such as Kinetic IT, CSC Australia, Ajilon and Fujitsu, were not listed despite having significant contracts with the state.
For instance, in 2009, Kinetic IT, ranked number one in ICT by the BNiQ search engine on the basis of ICT and technical professional staff, won a contract worth more than $57 million to provide ICT infrastructure services to the Department of Child Protection. The Tenders WA website shows that contract expires at the end of the year after an extension to the original term. It is not known if it or any of the other leading firms outside the shortlist tendered for the GovNext contract.
The process is part of a dramatic overhaul of the state government’s ICT structure led by inaugural government chief information officer Giles Nunis, who is leading the strategy to transition the state from being an owner and operator of ICT infrastructure towards being a consumer of such services.
According to the Tenders WA site, the GovNext-ICT contract is for the supply of computer, storage, cloud computing, and a unified government communications network for whole of WA.
