MSD plans panel procurement for infrastructure services
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The Ministry of Social Development, one of New Zealand’s largest government departments — and the seventh largest user of ICT in the country — is planning to appoint a panel of two or three alternative suppliers to deliver IT infrastructure support services.
Thje principal work involves support for part of MSD’s Hewlett-Packard infrastructure and the department's Sun infrastructure.
However, the contract could have implications for IT suppliers and the broader government sector.
"MSD is considering recommending to the Syndicated Contracts Review Board that this be a syndicated procurement that other government agencies may have the option of joining. However, this is subject to further consideration by MSD and then obtaining approval from the Syndicated Contracts Review Board," a notice released last week says.
The department's IT group manages solution delivery from strategy and design to management and ongoing support of IT systems.
"MSD is an IT dependent organisation and there is currently a significant range and number of technology-related projects and activities being undertaken. It has an extensive communications, networking and computing infrastructure in place that enables the delivery of critical business systems and applications to all regions and offices," the notice says.
Even more unfortunate, is that the profit margins that have made these multinationals will be buoyed by vast amounts of our tax dollars, and most of that profit (if not all) will be sent overseas rather than being invested in building up some of our domestic providers. This is a very sad and short sighted decision, particularly given the government's renewed rhetoric about the need for a "knowledge economy" if NZ is to have a bright economic future. This is one more nail in the coffin of our prospects.
Of course, I'll be very interested to see whether any of the suppliers in this panel are committed to providing open standards compliant solutions where they exist. It certainly is in their best interest (maximising profit) to ensure that they keep the MSD locked in to proprietary file formats like those employed by MS Office (e.g. DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, etc.) which do not comply with any published open standards, and are actively used to thwart market competition.
Posted by Dave Lane at 12:47:48 PM on February 15, 2010
