The Pretoria City Council has awarded a R10 million tender to national IT infrastructure supplier Datacentrix to install 1200 IBM desktop computers. This is the first phase of the Council`s initiative to standardise on a single brand name. In all the council intends replacing 2500 desktop computers for high-level users.
The move is part of the Council`s major IT rationalisation project to standardise its systems and reduce the total cost of ownership of IT. The project, which is expected to take three years to implement fully, and which will reduce the total cost of ownership from R85 million to R60 million per annum, was started in September 1999 following an intensive nine-month assessment and re-design of the entire IT infrastructure of the Council. The Pretoria City Council executes and administers all local authority services to the Pretoria area, with a staff of 10 000 and an annual budget of more than R3 billion.
Leon le Roux, the Council`s IT project manager, says that the evaluation revealed that total cost of ownership of desktop systems would be substantially reduced if the Council standardised its systems on brand names. "We found that by applying a single brand to the desktop, we could reduce our total cost of ownership. In the light of these figures, we went out to tender, and Datacentrix was awarded the contract to supply brand name systems."
According to le Roux, the Council is investigating a programme to donate replaced desktop computers to schools and libraries in upliftment areas in the Pretoria region.
Larger companies and government are applying long-term planning to their desktop systems, resulting in considerable cost savings, says Datacentrix sales and marketing director Klaas Lammers. "In the past the desktop was regarded more as an attachment to larger systems. Desktop purchases were made on an as-needed basis, with price being the only consideration. The result was a vast number of disparate systems each needing its own spare parts, maintenance skills, and upgrade path. The scenario has changed dramatically in the past year, as technological advancements have made the desktop critical to the running of enterprise systems. We have therefore urged our client base to investigate standardisation as an option for lowering the total cost of ownership of the desktop."
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