Genesis denies phone deal talk

Electricity generator and retailer Genesis Power denies Telecom gave it a discounted phone services deal to win a $2.2 million a year outsourcing contract for IT services subsidiary Gen-i.

Industry speculation is that Gen-i, which was bought by Telecom last year, was able to overhaul the other companies on the short list, Oxygen and Fujitsu, with a promise phone bills would be slashed.

But Genesis IT manager Russell Ambrose said the negotiation with Telecom over telecommunications services was completely separate.

"Our spend will not diminish compared with what we have been paying before," Ambrose said.

"We got no incentive from Telecom to go [to] Gen-i at all. Our telephony charges have not dropped and Gen-i was not the lowest bid."

He said Gen-i won on its merits.

"We liked what Gen-i can do now and in the future. We are considering outsourcing the hardware itself, and Gen-i can offer hosting if needed, so there is a full spectrum."

Ambrose said under Genesis' governance structure, the IT outsourcing contract needed to go to full market review every five years.

"We have had five years of good service from Axon, but Genesis has grown significantly in the past five years, and Gen-i looked stronger overall going forward," he said.

The contract involves just over 500 desktops and 120 servers.

Gen-i will manage many of the applications and manage the relationship between Genesis and other key IT suppliers, including Oracle, Maximo and Optimation.

Gen-i will also be used for other services on top of the core contract, on a time and materials basis.