DXC Technology appears set to land a major end user environment (EUE) services deal at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) under the department’s UnITy programme.
The award, which follows just around a week after Atos landed a major UnITy programme contract for hosting and application support services at the department, is to provide a single point of delivery for all the Defra’s end user services.
A contract award note last week appeared to indicate an award had been made to CSC Computer Sciences Limited (now better known as DXC Technology), with a value estimated to be between £81m and £125.9m.
According to a tender issued last July, Defra was looking to purchase a whole range of End user Environment services, including the implementation, provision, management and operation of provisioning; end user foundation services, including Active Directory, PKI Services, IDAM, SSO and Messaging Gateways; end user devices; assisted technology; office productivity; end point management and tools and line of business application presentation.
The tender indicated that there are approximately 21,500 end users within scope and 28,000 devices in circulation which include but are not limited to desktops, laptops, thin clients, tablets and phone devices.
The EUE is expected to be provided to Defra and other organisations in the Core Defra Group including Natural England, The Environment Agency, The Rural Payments Agency, Marine Management Organisation and The Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Although the contract award details do not specify award duration, the original tender envisaged a duration of 84 months, comprised of a core contract length of five years with a further two years in yearly intervals.
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The EUE services award follows the award of the hosting and applications support contract to Atos last week. The Atos deal is thought to be worth £135m under a six-year deal. The hosting and EUE deals are part of a suite of contracts collectively referred to under the “Unity” programme badge that will replace Defra’s existing ICT Services currently delivered under separate contracts by respectively Capgemini and IBM to the Environment Agency and Defra.
As well as Hosting and Applications Management services, the other work-streams covered by Defra’s UnITy Programme include Service Management (including Service Integration), Connectivity,) and Systems Integration and Platforms. It is possible that some of these further awards will also follow shortly.
It is understood that Atos may formally confirm the award of its Defra hosting contract sometime this week.
