Ministry defends new PCs spending

By RICHARD WOOD

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade denies it is spending up big on new PCs - pointing out its $9.8 million project spending does not include them.

Last week a lively discussion on commentary website Aardvark questioned the huge expense on a per PC basis.

IT director Elizabeth Beaufort said the project was actually about upgrades of software and core infrastructure for its PCs and servers in the 49 sites worldwide, including Wellington.

PC upgrades and replacements themselves were already funded on a regular cycle. The ministry's systems still run a 1993 version of Windows and will be upgraded to Windows 2000.

The $9.8 million spending includes $7.4 million for core infrastructure upgrade and installation, $810,000 for porting of financial management systems including hardware, $400,000 for upgrade of a document management system and $1.2 million for upgrade and migration of other applications and databases.

The ministry was also considering "thin client" technology such as Citrix, which allows older machines to run as terminals accessing applications on central servers.

Aardvark