EDS has called in specialists to manage a massive national network rollout as part of its outsourcing contract with the Australian Taxation Office.
Com Tech Integration Services (CTIS) will project manage the rollout for EDS because EDS' specialists were otherwise deployed, according to CTIS managing director Tony Whigham. He said the decision to bring in CTIS was based on the availability of resources.
"EDS, CSC and IBM GSA are big organisations with skill sets we don't have," he said.
"But we have very specialised services they don't have."
The nation-wide Cisco network includes a Stratecom Voice over IP network and a dual Cisco router, Whigham said. The ATO network will have around 18,000 nodes, he said.
Whigham said the organisations were yet to confirm the details of the arrangement. He said CTIS currently had one person working at EDS, along with Lucent JNA staff, to manage the project. Lucent JNA was part of the original team that bid for the ATO tender.
"This is completely new in an outsourced environment," Whigham said of the relationship.
"We do see it as a huge opportunity to deliver and work with EDS in Tax."
EDS won the five-year, $400 million ATO contract in March this year. EDS' sub contractors include local IT company Ipex, BHP IT, Protech, Salmat Holdings, CSM, Lucent JNA and Fuji Xerox.
* Ellen Cresswell travelled to Coolum as a guest of Com Tech.