Winners announced for £6bn Technology Products framework

Find out which 33 VARs and vendors made the cut on government's new major IT procurement vehicle

The government has settled on a 33-strong supplier line-up of channel players for its new multibillion-pound commodity IT framework.

Details of the winners of the Technology Products framework – seen by CRN this morning – contain a host of familiar reseller and vendor names, while others are notable by their absence. The contract has an estimated purse of between £4bn and £6bn over its lifespan and is split into four lots.

The first lot covers a range of aggregated commodity IT hardware technologies – including PCs, laptops, tablets, peripherals, servers, storage and audiovisual kit – and some associated additional services. The second covers off-the-shelf software and related services, while the third covers encrypted computing products and encryption services. The fourth lot, which is primarily populated by giant PC manufacturers, covers the supply of client devices "in large volumes".

The framework will be the primary replacement for the outgoing £6bn Commoditised IT Hardware and Software (CITHS) deal, which was awarded in 2010 and finally expires next month. Suppliers and the government will now enter into a 10-day cooling-off period ahead of official announcements provisionally going out towards the end of next week.

When CITHS was awarded, the cooling-off period stretched closer to three weeks, as a scoring correction ultimately saw Fujitsu added to the infrastructure hardware lot.

The government claims that, of the 33 firms to make the cut for Technology Products, 15 are classified as SMEs. With the supplier base widened significantly from the 19 that featured on CITHS, a number of new faces are included this time, including Esteem Systems, Novosco, Akhter Computer and Storm Technologies.

On the volume PC lot, comparatively small UK players Viglen, Centerprise and Novatech will be brushing up against the client computing world's biggest vendors. Logicalis, Pervasive Networks and Maindec – which bought CITHS provider CSA Waverley last year – are all new additions, while ANS Group, Misco, and Civica are missing this time around.

Fujitsu was the only major vendor to have a direct presence on CITHS, but this time it will be rubbing shoulders with pretty much all its biggest rivals, with Dell, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Acer all landing on lot 4. A total of 76 interested parties submitted tenders for the framework, with 69 making it through to the award-stage evaluation.

The full list of winning suppliers is below, stay tuned to CRN for all the developments and reaction over the coming days. CRN has contacted the Cabinet Office for comment and is awaiting a response at time of publication.

Lot 1 - IT Hardware & Value-Added Services
Ergo Computing
Probrand
XMA
Kelway
Softcat
Akhter Computer
Pervasive Networks
Insight
Computacenter
SCC
Stone Computers
Esteem Systems
Maindec Computer Solutions
Bull Information Systems
European Electronique

Lot 2 - Packaged Software & Value-Added Services
Viglen
Softcat
Insight
Kelway
Computacenter
SCC
Software Box Ltd (SBL)
Comparex UK
Bytes Software Services
Phoenix Software
European Electronique
Trustmarque Solutions
Logicalis
Novosco
Storm Technologies

Lot 3 - Information Assurance Products and Services
Softcat
Akhter Computer
Computacenter
Software Box Ltd (SBL)
Kelway
SCC
Centerprise International

Lot 4 - End User Computing Devices
Viglen
Centerprise International
Lenovo Technology
Acer
Fujitsu Services
Dell
Toshiba Information Systems
Novatech
HP Enterprise Services
Samsung Electronics