Defence

On Monday 8 May 2006 Defence issued a press release on the progress of its request for tender (RFT) for the Regional Information and Communications Technology Market Testing Project.

The RFT, released in July 2005 closed November 2005. It invited suitable organisations to tender for the provision of ICT service management across 460 Defence bases and sites. The scope of these services covers 470 Australian Public Service positions and 170 Australian Defence Force positions.

Robert Brandewie, recently retired Director of Defence Manpower at the US Department of Defense, spoke candidly about his experiences over the last five years in successfully implementing smartcard technology in a broad ranging interview with Intermedium. Mr Brandewie has recently been appointed Senior VP Public Sector Solutions for Actividentity and was a speaker at the Focus on Business conference in Canberra.

Dominant in the overall Federal Government ICT marketplace, the Department of Defence is even more dominant in the market for Hardware. In 2005-06, Defence accounted for almost half of the $533 million hardware contracts awarded, by value.

More than 4,000 ICT contracts incorporating Hardware were signed by Federal Government agencies in the 12 months to June 2006. This is up almost 25% on the previous year.

Key findings from the Hardware Report

Prompted by a number of high profile problems with its procurement processes on major projects, the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) has issued a procurement reform package, and called for public comment. The objectives of this new program of interest to ICT vendors include:

Implement a more commercial procurement model