Published on the 18/09/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Industry briefings showcasing the Queensland Government’s new ICT strategy and action plan have confirmed the State’s wholesale move to technology as a service with opportunities for local vendors…
ICT has been identified as a “strategic enabler for renewal in the Queensland Government” but it won’t be a case of DIY according to Glenn Walker the State’s executive director of ICT renewal.
A YouTube video featuring Walker’s presentation to a Partners in Technology briefing last week reinforces the key role technology as a service will play as the Government migrates from developing, owning and operating ICT systems and focuses more on managing relationships with vendors able to provide cloud-based services and facilitating end-user access to those services.
“This is less about specifying the technical requirement, as long as it meets our needs…getting out of the tactical discussion about the technology and into the strategic application,” said Walker. He added that this should encourage vendors – including smaller organisations participating in industry consortia – to craft innovative bundled solutions that were designed to meet the specified outcomes required by Government departments or agencies.
Walker also outlined how the Government intended to cut red tape and streamline the prequalification of ICT providers, establishing an ICT services panel for agencies to work with. SMEs were also promised access to simplified contracts for deals worth less than $1 million.
One of the first cabs off the rank is the Department of Health, which is still smarting from the findings of the commission into the payroll software debacle. Queensland Health minister Lawrence Springborg told attendees at the industry briefing that the department would be, “leading the transition to collaborative, contestable, value for money service provision”.
Department of Health CIO Ray Brown reinforced the trend away from DIY technology in favour of a service model which orchestrated multiple service providers and vendors. Instead of a centralised delivery model, he described a more federated arrangement where services were provided through externally hosted Queensland Health platforms and private clouds, which would over time replace many legacy systems.
The first two projects to embrace this new model are a planned overhaul of the telephony system (currently featuring more than 360 PBXs, 87,000 handsets and 13,000 mobiles) and the health workspace platform which provides virtual desktop infrastructure access to administration and workflow applications for more than 44,000 workstations and 11,000 plus mobile devices.
A request for offer will be released in early 2014.
