$6m IRD contract slips past local computer assemblers

By RICHARD WOOD

New Zealand personal computer assemblers failed to tender to supply the IRD with PCs in a 4700-unit, three-year deal won by multinational Acer last week and estimated to be worth over $6 million.

Local firms have scrambled to establish how they missed even applying. The tender was publicly notified through the Government Electronic Tenders Service site in February, which has an email notification service.

The chairman of the Computer Manufacturers Association of New Zealand, Peter Shirley, said a number of firms could not recall receiving the email, "but I guess if none of us responded we can't blame [the IRD]".

However, Shirley has questioned whether the Government is doing enough to help the local industry. He is critical of the approach by Government agencies to local supply.

Departments are required to put out to tender for any deal over $50,000 but "some are definitely of a mindset they can find ways around it".

One issue is "piggybacking", which occurs in the IRD Acer deal. It allows other Government departments to take part in a deal being provided in another tender.

Agencies can use this to avoid going to tender themselves.

Shirley said New Zealand was supposed to have a "level playing field", but in Australia if a Government department did not buy locally it had to explain why.

Ultra Computer director John Gould said he could not recall the email but Government tenders were proving a waste of time as the firm had had zero success with them.

He said it could be a pricing issue but his firm made plenty of sales to small business up against multinational Hewlett-Packard.

He said a lot of Government tenders quoted a multinational's particular model with the words "or similar".

"It almost seems like there is a preconceived idea of what they want before they start."

Gould said maybe it was time to have local quotas. New Zealand brands had proved over the years to be just as reliable and wellsupported.

Insite Technologies general manager Jan Paterson said she could not recall the email, which she described as "odd" because it was a regular process at the firm to go through them carefully.

She said association members were well aware of the tenders service, but some simply would not be interested in business of the type or size of the IRD.

Paterson said Insite itself did not have representation in Wellington and a lot of such business was with sophisticated resellers who were associated with multinational products.

Samcor managing director Graham Dunn is one who was aware of the IRD tender, but his firm eschewed it to chase other business.

He said Samcor was too busy at the time and nationwide service capabilities required in the tender were also an issue.

IRD national IT manager Tony Lester said all the major multinational PC vendors bid for the IRD deal which Acer won. Pricing was not disclosed but the PCs specified were Pentium P4 2 Ghz or equivalent with 256Mb of RAM and 20Gb or larger hard drive.