All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis
|
|
|
05 Aug 2010
Recent changes to government procurement plans could make it easier for new companies to win contracts, according to Ovum.
The analyst firm said that the dropping of provider Raytheon from the £750m eBorders programme highlights the fact that firms supplying technology to the government will face intense scrutiny that many may not stand up to.
This could help new entrants win contracts at the expense of incumbent suppliers.
The government has already hinted that it wants to change the way it procures technology. In an interview with V3.co.uk earlier in the year, Jeremy Hunt, now culture secretary, said that procurement would be broken down into chunks and could favour cheaper, open source providers.
"We will create a level playing field for open source IT throughout the public sector by introducing open standards for government computer systems," he said.
"This will help to open up IT procurement to open source solutions, and will also enable large scale IT projects to be split into small modular components.
He added that this will allow more small companies to win government contracts and drive down costs by increasing competition.
The number of failed technology initiatives already rocking Whitehall finances suggests that changes have to be made, and Ovum said that the dropping of Raytheon could spell doom for other firms.
Raytheon was dropped after officials cited "dissatisfaction" with its service just three years into the project, Ovum said.
Latest stories from Public Sector
Related articles
Related jobs
Poll
Are you confident that the UK's IT infrastructure is secure from attack in the wake of the Flame malware revelations?
TFL director of Games transport Mark Evers discusses how the public transport network is preparing for this summer's event
Connect with V3.co.uk
The wrong printers, for the wrong tasks on the wrong contracts
Who leads the BI pack and who should we be watching out for?
Sales Consultant - Data Centre, Colocation, Hosting...
Senior Interaction Designer (User Experience, UCD, Interactive...
Information Architecture / IA / User Experience / UX...
Sales Consultant A rapidly expanding independent managed...
Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.
Do you agree?
Wonderful in principle
but will it work. The Governments for the last 20 years have been have been steadily getting rid of professional expertise of all sorts. Every move to cut down the Civil Service was organised by administrators who believed they could hire expertise when required. The result is that there is not enough internal knowledge of technical matters to even define the problem let alone administer the resulting contracts. Inadequately briefed consultants at great expense tackle the brief they are given and then inevitably produce an unsuitable answer. The contract is negotiated but has to be changed as it becomes clear it won't work. Until there are people with expertise who in contact with the end user can correctly define the need it does not matter who the contractor is.
Posted by: misceng 10 Aug 2010