Agriculture dept praises Commander's work

Commander Communications has claimed success in a major substantial IT relocation and technology refresh program for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) days after the department put its relationship with the company back out to market.

Last week DAFF called for suppliers to bid for its managed services work, which has been provided since 2000 by Commander subsidiary Volante as part of the Group 8 agency cluster which included a number of others such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. That contract had been worth $48 million a year across all the agencies.

This morning Commander issued a statement saying over the Christmas period it had completed a substantial amount of work for the department during its move from an outdated building in the Canberra suburb of Barton to a new building in the city's central business district. The project entailed:

• A complete desktop refresh of some 2,500 PCs;
• A printer relocation and refresh effort;
• The relocation of some 400 servers to the new facilities;
• The relocation of DAFF's disaster recovery centre to a new site in the suburb of Fyshwick;
• Constructing new data and voice networks, including WAN infrastructure.

DAFF chief information officer Gary Leifheit praised Commander's work, saying the project had been incredibly complex.

Leifheit was not immediately available to comment on whether Commander's recent success with DAFF would deliver it an advantage in the formal tendering process to replace the department's IT managed services contract.