************************************************************
The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) announced today (January 25) that a contract had been awarded to Sema Group Limited to provide hosting services for a number of government information systems.
The contractor is required to provide hosting services for 10 departmental information systems for seven government departments. These services are currently being provided by the Central Computer Centre.
Speaking at the contract award ceremony this morning, the Government Chief Information Officer, Mr Howard Dickson, said this tendering exercise signified a major milestone in which the Government commenced its first outsourcing of data centre operation to the industry.
"As we take forward our E-government initiatives beyond IT to service transformation, we need to progressively align and redesign our IT infrastructure. Our vision is set on having processing centre clusters, networks and personal access facilities that are functional, making prudent use of current technology and bringing maximum value to the business users. This also means that we need architected applications and information access, while moving relevant paper-based information on-line," Mr Dickson said.
"Through this outsourcing arrangement, we aim to leverage on the private sector's resources and expertise to deliver efficient, effective and quality data centre services to government departments. We also intend to foster the development of the IT industry in the provision of data centre services."
Mr Dickson believed that the data centre outsourcing initiative was timely as a forerunner of a new strategy to support E-government.
"We welcome input and participation from the industry in our deliberations on our future outsourcing, facilities management and public-private-partnership arrangements," he said.
Under the contract, the service provider is responsible for providing the computer hardware, system software as well as operation, management and support services for operation of the departmental information systems, for seven years, starting from December 30, 2005.
This outsourcing project will achieve some 20 to 30% savings on the Government's total investments on the relevant data centre facilities and operating costs in its seven-year contract period.
Ends/Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:10
NNNN
