Published on the 03/02/2010 | Written by Newsdesk
New ‘whole of government’ enterprise agreement lays the foundation for future ICT projects and supports Queensland’s ICT businesses…
The Queensland Government and Microsoft have signed what is being called a landmark enterprise agreement as part of the state’s ‘Toward Q2 through ICT’ strategy.
The ‘whole of government’ agreement signals a deepening of the relationship with Microsoft as the Government looks to enhance service delivery and tap into savings gained from greater efficiencies via a program of ICT modernisation.
Up to 150,000 employees will be covered by the new agreement, which will also underpin the Government’s moves to establish a standardised desktop fleet, e-mail and server platform.
Microsoft negotiated the whole of government agreement under the Toward Q2 through ICT strategy, establishing it as a best practice approach for future government interactions with ICT suppliers.
Describing the deal as “ground-breaking,” the Minister for Public Works and Information and Communications Technology, Mr Robert Schwarten, said that the Queensland Government had negotiated a new arrangement with Microsoft to deliver competitively-priced products and services to government agencies.
“A whole-of-Government arrangement has been entered into that gives all departments access to a range of essential server technologies for deployment across the government,” Schwarten said.
“In addition, the arrangement gives all state and local government entities the opportunity to purchase other Microsoft solutions with various options, depending upon the needs of the agency involved.”
Pip Marlow, Microsoft Australia’s director of public sector, said the new arrangement was fundamentally about helping Queenslanders get access to better services by making them more accessible, efficient and effective.
