The IT tender jackpot

a total of 34 consortia – including five listed it companies – have been chosen as preferred suppliers for government’s most lucrative technology tender to date, the seat management services tender. the tender will be worth at least r2,5-bn, but could amount to much more depending on government’s needs over the next five years.
although there were 45 positions, there was some overlap between the three different categories. of those 45 spots, 31 were chosen for the outright purchase option, another nine for the leasing of components, and just five to offer a full or complete seat, involving the outsourcing of a complete it solution.

the listed companies that made the cut included bytes, datacentrix, mustek, ast and pinnacle. but ast is the only one of those chosen in all three categories of the tender, for the outright purchase of hardware and software (in this case as part of a consortium), and for the outsourcing of a complete it offering, as well as for the leasing of components.

making the announcement at a press conference in sandton this morning, state it agency (sita) ceo mavuso msimang said government should now benefit from being able to source goods and services in a more efficient and cost effective manner than before. he defined seat management as the supply of a combination of it goods and or services, which can be bought outright or leased.

sita supplier selection authority (ssa) chairperson londiwe mthembu said this tender involved consolidating the whole of government’s it spend as one client, instead of disparate departments and geographic regions.

mthembu said sita had arrived at the amount of r2,5-bn by looking at government’s it spending over a number of years in order to project what it might spend in the coming five. but, she said the figure was “very conservative”.

she said the preferred consortia had been chosen to provide specific elements to specific provinces, describing what each would be allowed to supply to government as a “diverse cocktail”. msimang said suppliers in the provinces would not be disadvantaged by the tender being awarded centrally.

so although no single consortium should get a disproportionate amount of the business, it will be up to their individual marketing efforts to ensure they get the biggest possible slice of the pie they’ve been allocated.

the awarding of the tender took longer than expected. msimang said this was due to the complexity of the tender, the number of bidders and the range of components, which made it essential to relook at things again and again.

listed of preferred suppliers for the seat management services (sms) tender
1. 31 consortia selected for rft 285/1

new dawn technologies
zodwa technology solution (pty) ltd
sightful 35 trading as kms computers
chm vuwani
tecor group
lesedi corporate technology
bid industrial
i-tech consortium
hewlett packaged (hp)
tumelo computer cc
xon systems (pty) ltd
temoso technologies
bytes technology group
mustek
css tirisano
ibm
ast consortium
pinnacle technology holdings
ubuntu technologies and dell
african legend technologies (pty) ltd
sahara computers / choice
hux-ndashe partnerhsip
jh data systems and fabrics trading as nb enterprises
gubevu it partnership
it empowerment
sizwe business networking
thuso information technology
datacentrix
global outsourcing services trading as printercom
sisonke global systems
sahara systems

2. five consortia for the leasing of a complete seat

sahara computers
ast group
dell / ubuntu technologies
siemens limited
hewlett packard

3. nine consortia for the leasing of components

sahara computers
ibm
ast group
dell / ubuntu technologies
pinnacle
rentworkds
siemens limited
mustek
hewlett packard