HP palms £316m in DWP desktop deal

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded a significant desktop management contract to HP under the Desktop 21 framework agreement.

The five-year £316m Desktop 21 deal covers a range of desktop services including security, print, service desk and device provision and support, and will see the DWP move to HP's WorkPlace360 desktop management platform from 2013.

HP will begin work immediately to put in place the infrastructure needed to support Desktop 21, before moving on to virtualise DWP's desktop applications on a rolling programme, according to the DWP.

HP will then begin the roll-out of the new desktop hardware, including the deployment of thin client devices, which will be able to "support full or partial moves to cloud services at DWP's discretion", the department told Guardian Government Computing.

The Desktop21 agreement was set up by Buying Solutions in March 2010, to allow suppliers to deliver a range of desktop services to public sector organisations with requirements for more than 1,500 staff. There are three suppliers in the agreement: Atos Origin, Fujitsu and HP.

HP has historically run DWP's desktop estate. While the department awarded its desktop management contract to Fujitsu in 2010, the contract was subsequently terminated in March 2011, with HP continuing to run DWP's desktop estate until a new provider could be appointed.

Last year, DWP also announced that it would be running a trial of open source software on 1,000 desktops. That pilot will still go ahead, a spokeswoman for DWP said.

This article was originally published at Guardian Government Computing.

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