Data#3 successful govt tender marks milestone for integrators

Data#3 will team with two other successful panelists Fujitsu and Dell for the contract, to provide servers, desktops, laptops and services for the whole of the Queensland Government.

“Our view is that this is a watershed contract for governments and service providers. If you look at government history, you’ll see that they have gone direct to vendors and bypassed the channel. There has been very little part that services companies such as Data#3 have had to play,” Grant said.

“But what’s happened over time is that the reality, in terms of trying to deploy, maintain and support vast networks of equipment, is that it’s hard and you need to take a more holistic view. At the end of the day, the equipment becomes a part of something that is much broader than just a procurement of equipment.”

The whole-of-government contract is a first of its kind for the Queensland Government which has effectively condensed eight major PC supply contracts into a single procurement system to supply IT equipment and services to up to 21 government agencies across the state.

Data#3 will exclusively provide energy-efficient solutions centred on Toshiba and HP hardware, covering desktop, laptop and server products to the Government over three years with an option of two one-year extensions. It will also couple its supply of hardware with logistics, supply-chains, deployment and managed services, Grant said.

The other successful panelists, Dell and Fujitsu, were appointed as suppliers of hardware made by Dell, Acer, IBM and Lenovo.

Announcing the contract in Parliament last week, Minister for Public Works, Housing and ICT, Robert Schwarten, said the Queensland Government was expecting to save $20 million per year over the life of the contract.

Data#3’s Grant said his company was expecting a fair chunk of the $100 million value of the contract.

Schwarten also noted that one of the government's key aims in awarding the contract was to introduce more energy efficient computers in government offices. An aim that Grant believed helped Data#3’s tender process.

“Our offer to Queensland Government not only meets the government's need for 'the right price' but with the range of services we have proposed, it also provides the 'right solution' for the many agencies that will draw on the contract," he said.

“We will work with the agencies to select the right type of equipment for their specific needs and get it delivered and configured to work in their business at the lowest cost to taxpayers and to the environment.”

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