Mahesh Sharma | July 31, 2008
THE Australian Taxation Office has selected five companies to bid for its end-user computing services contract potentially worth more than $390 million.
After evaluating expressions of interest from 10 organisations the ATO shortlisted CSC Australia, EDS Australia, KAZ, Unisys Australia and rank outsider Lockheed Martin Australia to pitch for the final work.
The contract will initially be for a period between four and five years, with options to extend to a maximum of 10 years, according to an ATO spokeswoman.
The deal is worth $39 million per annum, excluding GST, but is expected to grow to around $60 million as the desktop, mobile and printer fleet could be refreshed in the next few years.
The current ATO desktop and end-user environment consists of 28,000 desktops and 4700 laptops, 1776 laser printers and 370 servers.
This is the second module of the ATO's move to break-up its $2 billion single-sourcing arrangement with EDS Australia.
The deal will also see the ATO's workforce become more mobile via notebooks as opposed to devices such as BlackBerrys or Apple's iPhone.
"At this point in time we're looking more at the ability to run our business applications ... but we fundamentally need to retain a secure environment," Narelle Dotta, ATO's Program Director, ICT Sourcing Program, previously said.
In June the tax office briefed more than 50 companies competing for a slice of its centralised computing contract, worth some $800 million over the next five years.
Applications for the centralised computing contract closed earlier this week with a shortlist of successful bidders to be announced on August 28.