DTA names first hardware marketplace suppliers

The Digital Transformation Agency has established the first category of its new government-wide hardware marketplace, with storage products the debut offer.

The agency went looking for the marketplace and online catalogue late last year to ease hardware procurement for both suppliers and agencies, as well leverage the scale of demand across government to secure better pricing.

The marketplace was conceived to replace a number of IT procurement panels, including the government's expiring ICT hardware panel, mobile panel, and the hardware categories of the commercial off-the-shelf-software and hardware panel.

Recent reviews of the hardware and mobile panel had found that both arrangements were "meeting the government’s overall objectives for co-ordinated procurement”, but that consolidation of the arrangements was recommended for 2018.

The agency has now revealed the first cohort of 36 suppliers including OEMs, resellers and services integrators that will initially provide enterprise storage products and services up the marketplace.

Suppliers include Dimension Data, DXC, Ethan Group, Forward IT, Fujitsu, Infront Systems, NEC, NetApp, Optus, Telstra and Unisys.

However more than 60 percent of the suppliers are small to medium enterprises such as Gulanga Group, Hyperscalers, iQ3 and Qirx.

Government agencies will be able to use the marketplace to buy storage products and services “outright, as a ‘capability as a service’ solution, or as a managed service producing support, maintenance and other services”.

DTA Chief Strategy Officer Anthony Vlasic said the marketplace and the initial enterprise storage category was the “first step in delivering an ‘open often’, consolidated model for hardware”.

“It means new sellers can join regularly, and its flexibility means government can keep up with new technologies as they develop,” he said.

“As we add more categories, the marketplace will become a go-to platform for both government buyers and businesses selling hardware to government.”

The enterprise storage category is the first of 17 categories that the marketplace will eventually support.

The DTA is now preparing to conduct the market approach for its new two categories: network cabling services and network equipment.