Research Council wants new IT help for Vista upgrade
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is seeking a supplier to provide ICT services for its Canberra and Melbourne offices over the next three years, including migrating the Council from XP to Vista.
The contract will involve a complete refresh of all ICT equipment, according to the tender, as well as the provision of a range of other services including service desk, desktop, Internet and Web hosting, business application infrastructure and network services.
The NHMRC will need support for 275 end users -- 225 in Canberra and 50 in Melbourne. Of those staff, 23 need remote access and nine also use BlackBerry devices. The NHRMC believes the number of end users will grow at 10 percent per annum.
The NHMRC currently runs XP on its desktops, but in the tender requirements, the Council has expressed its wish that the new desktop and laptop operating system be the "most up to date and stable version of Microsoft Vista".
Until now, the NHMRC has accessed IT services through the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA). The temporary agreement between the two runs until the end of June 2009.
Some of the services are delivered by IT providers such as IBM with whom DoHA has an agreement.
For Web hosting services, the NHRMC has a contract with Bulletproof Networks, which comes to an end in December 2009.
The tender will close on 29 April.