Datacom wins Xstrata help desk deal

in brief Datacom announced today that it had won a two-year multimillion dollar deal with mining group Xstrata to provide an IT service desk to over 2000 users.

The 24-hour help set-up will cover nine sites in Queensland and the Northern Territory. The new agreement, which can be extended by another two years, is expected to improve turnaround of user IT requests, increase the utilisation of Xstrata's IT infrastructure and tools as well as giving users the ability to track their calls and requests via Altiris.

Xstrata's choice followed a review of its IT support model. "Xstrata chose Datacom based on our flexibility and our ability to deliver high quality IT Service Desk operations aligned to ITIL best practices," Datacom's Queensland director Todd Gorsuch said in a statement.

Gorsuch said that the contract would mean the addition of new staff to the company, but did not specify how many. "The impact to Datacom in QLD will be significant, especially in a time of general market instability. Not only does this add a significant number of new staff to the Datacom operation, but it also adds an excellent company to our customer portfolio."