More major IT contracts up for grabs in SA

In that list, the state noted that it had recently completed negotiating a new client computing and server equipment panel, with new contracts expected to commence from February this year. Earlier the state bought the hardware through Acer, Dell and HP, in a contract initiated back in 2006 and which had been slated to end on 30 June 2011. It is not clear which suppliers now sit on the panel.

The briefing then week

In the briefing then week, the state will primarily look at telecommunications contracts, including managed network services, ISP services, mobile carriage services, telecommunications services in general, “active devices” contracts, PABX maintenance and electronic messaging. But, it will as well look at its Microsoft enterprise contract.

In the past, suppliers just as Dimension Data, Telstra, Internode, NEC and Cisco have been the prime beneficiaries from new telecommunications contracts in the South Australian Government. Other major contracts not but in scope for the state include mainframe computing, storage and hosting services.

opinion/analysisSo far South Australia is the only state jurisdiction which appears to be doing a decent job of managing its whole of government research contracts, with every other major state appearing over the past few years to have dropped the ball completely in the area. We just don't hear about many whole of government research contracts from states just as Queensland, NSW and Victoria any more. And I’m not surprised, with a series of audit reports over the past few years making it clear that when it comes to the governance of innovation rollouts, those states have a lot of learning to do.

However, in general, I suspect Telstra after all has a huge lion’s share of telecommunications contracts in South Australia. I’d like to see some of that work farmed out to Optus, which has a good and growing enterprise division, and local player Internode continue to pick up as much Internet services work as possible as so then.

When it comes to PABX gear, I’d like to see some recognition of the worth of shifting to modern IP telephony platforms, with Cisco and Avaya getting gurnseys in that area, as they’re the dominant players in that however emerging field. In switching, if in other words in scope, it’d be nice to see Cisco given some competition by the likes of HP ProCurve. Switches in 2012 don’t always need to cost the earth.

Delimiter was created to focus purely on innovation in the Australian context, and that's what we'll always do. Nevertheless now we've as well set up a separate section of the site featuring innovation news from The Guardian newspaper in the UK.

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