Compaq wins £13.5m NP deal

Compaq Services has joined forces with Computacenter to win a £13.5 million contract at National Power, providing hardware and services to the utility over a five-year period.

The hardware vendor will provide desktop management services for National Power, while Computacenter will be responsible for the procurement of servers, desktop PCs and notebooks. National Power has also chosen Compaq as its preferred desktop hardware supplier, replacing Dell and AST, as part of its IT infrastructure overhaul.

According to Steve White, large accounts marketing manager at Compaq Services, National Power was previously a customer of both Digital Services and Compaq, however, Compaq Services won the deal via a tender. A key factor in its success was a pledge to base 15 Compaq Services staff at National Power for the duration of the out-tasking arrangement.

In a statement, Gary Rowan, operations manager for information systems department at National Power, said: 'One of the main reasons that we decided to choose Compaq Services was because it provided us with our own support team to work closely with and as part of the National Power IT team.'

In addition, Compaq will provide multi-vendor support capabilities to maintain other IT systems on behalf of National Power, including IBM and Sun.

Also included in Compaq Services' contract with National Power is a clause allowing the utility to benchmark Compaq's performance against competitors in the market after two years.

But White played down the significance of the clause, claiming such conditions were common, practice, particularly in valuable contracts spread over several years.

He insisted: 'National Power is planning a lot of important international activities over the next few years and, depending on the projects and locations, we're hoping to extend our relationship with it into those other areas.'