NSW govt seeks mobile management, WAN proposals
The NSW government's shared service provider ServiceFirst is polling the industry for proposals to help it manage the disparate mobile phones, tablets, and mobile broadband devices for its staff.
In a request for proposal (RFP) placed on the NSW eTendering site on Tuesday, ServiceFirst established its need for a service provider to manage and provide a fleet of mobile and broadband devices, applications installed and used on the devices, and the expenses associated with such devices, while also enabling employees to bring their own device.
The RFP specifically asks potential tender makers to indicate whether they support BlackBerry, Apple iOS, Nokia S60, Windows 6.x, Windows Phone, Google Android, and Samsung Samba devices. It also appears to be concerned with any bloatware, asking respondents to indicate how they will minimise space, processor, and battery use if their proposal requires the installation of a mobile device management agent on devices.
Some of ServiceFirst's other concerns revolve around security, such as detecting when devices have been jailbroken or rooted, whether they can be remotely erased, and securing or restricting access to a device's connectivity options. It additionally has a number of audit and compliance requirements.
ServiceFirst currently uses Novell Groupwise for its electronic mail and calendar functions, but indicated that it has plans to migrate to another platform. As such, it has asked potential tender makers to indicate any additional fees for migrating away from Groupwise, and specifically asked them to specify whether there are any additional fees for moving to Microsoft Exchange.
ServiceFirst is also seeking proposals to standardise its wide area network (WAN) services. The WAN is used by for the NSW government's frontline services, and operates across its two Sydney datacentres.
Work to standardise the network will also need to take into account ServiceFirst's intention to roll out voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing services in the future.
The shared services provider is accepting submissions for both proposals up to May 17, with ServiceFirst expecting to finalise its review of responses by May 31.