Computacenter ousts HP in £300m-plus FCO desktop deal win

UK's biggest VAR appointed as Foreign and Commonwealth Office's preferred partner for desktop infrastructure in six-year deal

Computacenter has been appointed as preferred bidder for a multi-year desktop services contract with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) worth a potential £300m-plus.

The contract runs for an initial four years, with an option of two one-year extensions. In a tender notice published 18 months ago, the estimated value of the contract is pegged at between £50m and £270m, excluding VAT.

The Hatfield-based VAR is tasked with overseeing support and maintenance of the department's existing Firecrest desktop infrastructure. The deal also covers "a number of (optional) core enhancements" to the estate and related services.

In addition to the FCO's client fleet, the Firecrest infrastructure includes email and business productivity applications, internet services, printers and MFPs, and servers, LAN and other datacentre infrastructure. Computacenter will be charged with providing various technical, business and consultancy services, taking over the contract from incumbent HP.

The desktop services lot forms part of a larger contract, with a service management and integration (SMI) services lot worth between £15m and £80m won by BAE Detica.

"We are in the process of obtaining ministerial approval to award both contracts and once obtained will arrange for both contracts to be signed," said the FCO in a statement. "We need to reduce our IT running costs from between 30 to 40 per cent over the current Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) covering the period FY 10/11 to FY 15/16.

"The new DI supplier will replace Hewlett-Packard and work closely with BAE Detica as the FCO's newly engaged service management integrator (SMI) provider, to help us better manage our IT, while at the same time maintaining business continuity of our critical IT systems."