In brief: NEC wins SA government networking contract

NEC Australia today announced it had won a $69.8 million whole-of-government network management contract with the South Australian government.

The previous state government contract with Dimension Data expired last month.

The three-year contract with NEC Australia includes maintenance and management of network devices.

The contract, which begins in Q3, includes options for two additional three-year periods, an NEC statement said.

The services will be delivered from NEC’s control centre in Adelaide, the state’s acting minister for the public sector, Martin Hamilton-Smith, said in a statement.

“NEC Australia’s extensive experience in providing managed IT and network services will ensure the government has the best resources, expertise and tools to meet its objectives,” Hamilton-Smith said.

Last month NEC Australia announced it had won a slice of the Department of Defence's massive data centre consolidation project, which is led by Lockheed Martin.

Under a $150 million contract NEC Australia will help maintain the stability of Defence systems during the project, re-host applications in the new data centre environments and help decommission the old environment.

The data centre consolidation project is a component of the Defence Strategic Reform Program, which began in 2009 and is intended to save the department $20 billion over 10 years; $1.9 billion of these savings are earmarked to be delivered through ICT reform.