A £500m Cloud services contract has been awarded by government to more than 30 suppliers who have been named on the pan-government framework agreement for hardware and software.
The two year framework, which has a one-year extension option, is for Cloud services, software applications and programming and computer hardware. The hosting, ongoing operation and support of such services will be expected as part of the deal, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Training and consultancy services will also form part of two-year contract.
Chosen suppliers will be expected to deliver a software application that is capable of interacting with other applications or systems, while the computer hardware aspect of the deal will include servers and storage systems.
Firms part of the framework include: Aareon, Asidua, Atkins, Atos, Bramble, Capita, CACI, Civica, Compass Informatics, Corelogic, Hitachi, HTK, Idox, Innogistic, Ipswich, Lagan, Liberata, Liquidlogic, Logica, Managememycomplaints.com, Methods Consulting, Mott MacDonald and Mouchel. Suppliers Northgate, Oxford Computer Consultants, Pitney Bowes Software, RSK Business Solutions, Siemens, Sirsi, Swift Datapro Software, System Associates, Valueworks, Whitespace Waste Software and Zipporah are all also named on the notice.
Elsewhere it looks like the Government Cloud App Store may launch a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, in mid-February, not the March deadline originally laid down in last October's Strategic Implementation Plan. That at least is the impression the man in charge of the 'Catalogue Network' - to give the Store its official Whitehall name - gave delegates to last week's Cloud Expo Europe in London Olympia.
Mark O'Neill, Proposition Director for Innovation and Strategy in the Government Digital Service, told attendees that the government is now looking at a mid February launch. The promise is especially interesting as O'Neill pointed out that ICT vendor applications for the G-Cloud framework has now hit 1,600 - the "largest we've ever received for a framework: and added that many of those applying are SMEs.
The first tranche of the G-Cloud catalogue should appear in March. O’Neill added:
