Government Procurement Service signs suppliers for PCs and tablets deal

Guardian Government Computing
Guardian Professional, Friday 29 June 2012 16.05 BST

The Government Procurement Service (GPS) has awarded its long-awaited IT hardware and solutions framework, which has a predicted value of up to £4bn over a maximum of four years.
According to the Cabinet Office, the framework is intended to allow the public sector to get better value from its purchases of commoditised hardware, such as desktops, laptops, tablets, servers, printers and the most commonly used peripherals.
It said the framework has a "good mix" of suppliers, including original equipment manufacturers, SMEs and resellers.
The full list of companies is Academia; Akhter; Centerprise; Computacenter; Dell; Ergo; Fujitsu; HP; Insight Direct; Kelway; Lenovo; Misco; Softcat; Specialist Computer Centre; Stone; Viglen; and XMA.
Chris Pennell, principal analyst at market intelligence firm Kable, said: "This is good for Viglen and Lenovo, which tend to struggle against competition from big suppliers. But overall the supplier list is what would be expected."
He added: "We'll have to wait and see how successful the framework is".
In an effort to reduce costs the framework will have standardised product specifications and use procurement techniques such as e-auctions.
The GPS intends to run further auctions on behalf of government purchasers with the goal of achieving greater savings against catalogue pricing.
David Shields, managing director of the GPS, said the framework is another step in the delivery of the government's ICT strategy.
"We're pleased to have worked closely with Pro5 in developing this framework to ensure the benefits of standardisation, aggregation and price transparency are shared across the whole of the UK public sector," he said.