Big names bid for mega school computer project - Singapore
ST Electronics, SingTel, NCS in race for 100,000-seat MOE exercise
By ONG BOON KIAT
(SINGAPORE) Familiar names emerged yesterday when the Ministry of Education (MOE) disclosed the identities of the companies bidding to take part in the ambitious project to standardise computers and software applications for schools in Singapore.
Throwing names into the hat are Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Microsoft Singapore, Singapore Technologies Electronics (ST Electronics), Hewlett-Packard Singapore, Cisco Systems, Lenovo Singapore, NEC and NCS - which were all associated with the first $1.3 billion public-sector Standard Operating Environment (SOE) project that was awarded in February.
Only three are new faces: Getronics Solutions, Civica and Datacraft Singapore.
There are also notable absentees from the list. They include EDS, the winning consortium leader of the first SOE project, and IBM, which was unsuccessful with its bid with NCS for the first SOE project.
Like its predecessor, the upcoming SOE for schools project - which could involve 100,000 seats - seeks to harmonise computers and software applications across the agencies involved, so as to improve collaboration and productivity of its users. The winning bid will build and operate such a computing environment. The first SOE project involved some 74 government agencies and spanned 60,000 seats.
While the hardware and software requirements are not yet known, students and staff in MOE schools could be equipped with wireless connectivity applications, electronic whiteboard sharing, collaborative learning platforms, small form-factor devices and remote teaching systems, according to an MOE spokesperson.
‘We are open to proposals from tenderers on any technology that can enhance teaching and learning,’ said the spokesperson.
MOE’s pre-qualification tender exercise to shortlist potential service provider closed on April 29. Four proposals were received, out of which three were by consortiums and one by a company.
The three consortiums are Ednovate@SG, led by SingTel and includes Getronics Solutions, Microsoft, Civica and NEC; Team AdVance, led by ST Electronics and includes HP and SingTel; and an unnamed consortium led by software and services firm Civica, which includes Datacraft, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Lenovo. A fourth proposal was submitted by NCS, which participated as a single company.
MOE said it will now mull over the various proposals before releasing the pre-qualification tender results in July. It will then call for the final tender in April 2009. Deployment to schools will begin in 2010, with the initial contract for the successful tender lasting a period of eight years - similar to the first SOE contract.
According to the MOE spokesperson, new vendors can still participate in the final tender by submitting a request for pre-qualification to MOE.
Source : Business Times - 08 May 2008
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