Defence extends Unisys IT support contract

The Department of Defence has extended its contract with IT giant Unisys for the support of around 100,000 end users in some 450 locations around the country.

Worth $74 million, the contract extension runs until 2018. Unisys has held the IT support contract with Defence since 2008, bringing the total that will be paid to the company to just under $480 million by 2018.

The decision to extend Unisys' contract comes after Defence postponed a long-awaited tender process for IT outsourcing in 2014, giving the company another two years worth of work.

Defence said at the time said it would decide on who would supply long-term IT services through a distributed computing bundle within two years. The department has now pushed that decision back another 24 months.

Earlier this month, Defence said it intends to restart work on market testing of the distributed computing outsourcing deal in the second half of this year.

The department is one of Australia's largest technology shops, with more than 100,000 workstations around the world, along with 800 networks, 200 processing locations and over 3000 applications. 

In February this year, Defence was given a $17 billion spending boost to improve IT, including overhauling its end user computing systems, replacing terrestrial communications, and consolidating its data centres.

Defence is also currently in the early market sounding stages for a $2 billion consolidated enterprise resource planning system.