Tasmania seeks more for $34m hardware panel

The Tasmanian Government has called for more suppliers to join a two-year, whole-of-government ICT hardware panel, in a request for tender issued Friday.

Notebook with a yellow dollar sign on its desktop dispaly

The Government sought to expand a panel established on 1 April 2009 by appointing new manufacturers and resellers of Windows PCs, maintenance, peripheral equipment, and laptop and tablet devices.

According to tender documents, business on the panel exceeded $17 million a year, valuing the contract at more than $34 million over its two-year term.

Members of existing panel would be automatically included without the need to retender. These were:

• Acer
• Apple
• AsusTek
• Dell
• Fuji Xerox
• IBM
• Konica-Minolta
• Lenovo
• Lexmark
• Sun Microsystems and
• Toshiba

Hewlett-Packard and ASUS were also represented by various resellers on the panel.

The new contract was expected to span two years to 30 April 2013, after which it could be extended for a further two years.

Tender documents indicated that while the panel was mandatory for most agencies, the Tasmanian Government made no guarantee of business for the successful tenderers.

Agencies would be encouraged to obtain competitive pricing from panel contractors, particularly when making volume purchases.

Deadline for tenders is 6 May 2011, with successful and unsuccessful contractors to be notified by 1 July.