With just over two months until the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development takes place in Johannesburg, HP is today expected to announce a hardware sponsorship deal for the conference.
The deal follows months of uncertainty and speculation as to whether the organiser has the time or money to put the technology infrastructure for the summit in place. The deal, however, does not solve all of the organiser`s woes, because the large area network, wide area network and Internet service provider portions of the technology requirements are still outstanding, as the tender process resumed a few weeks ago.
Initially, local organiser Johannesburg World Summit Company (Jowsco) issued tender requests for all of the summit`s technology requirements. Of these, only the software portion has been concluded. The remaining tenders for hardware and networking facilities were put on ice earlier this year when previous IT executive Mark Alexander announced intentions to secure sponsorship deals for these technology requirements.
Alexander said at the time that the search for sponsors was part of a "budget relief" process, although he insisted that the organiser, through government sponsorship, had the funding available if the sponsorship deals fell through. Speaking to ITWeb in May, Alexander said there were two potential sponsors for the hardware requirements and two for the networking needs. "We will conclude this process by the end of May," he promised.
Today`s announcement of HP`s hardware sponsorship of the summit concludes the hardware procurement process, while the networking process has reverted to the original tender process.
Mohammed Hafajee, currently Jowsco acting IT executive since Alexander was moved into an advisory role, says short-listed tenderers have been called in for final presentations and a decision on the final providers is "imminent".
HP is expected to formally announce the sponsorship deal at a press conference in Parliament this afternoon. Although details of the deal are not yet available, previous announcements by Jowsco indicate the deal could include as many as 2 500 PCs and around 25 servers as well as related hardware peripherals. The sponsorship is expected to be received by minister of Environmental Affairs Mohammed Valli Moosa, and Moss Mashishi, Jowsco CEO.
The United Nations-hosted summit, to be held in Johannesburg from 26 August, is expected to attract more than 65 000 participants to the city and has already resulted in significant infrastructure upgrades to the city.
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