Australia Post has inked a 12 month deal with Electronic Data Systems Corp. to upgrade from its existing Microsoft NT 4 environment to Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003.

The contract involves migrating some 10,000 Australia Post desktops and was pitched to Australia Post under the Agility Alliance banner, a culmination of Cisco, Dell, EMC, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Xerox.

Australia Post general manager of corporate infrastructure services Mark Howard said the decision to go with EDS was based on the provider"s track record with clients such as the Commonwealth Bank and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

"It provides an opportunity to look at how we manage technology across the organization by implementing an IT infrastructure that makes it easier to roll out new business initiatives and streamline computing activities," Howard said.

The Australia Post contract was tendered in five parts, with EDS winning infrastructure, management and coordination, user experience and training and business applications.

EDS Australia managing director Chris Mitchell said the migration will be undertaken using the Microsoft-developed Zero-Touch process.

Zero-Touch has two components, installing and provisioning, and is designed to automate deployment tasks for image creation and distribution. Mitchell said it is the most efficient way to deploy and manage enterprise desktop services.

"The technology has saved EDS clients up to 30 percent in operating systems migration costs and has boosted deployment speeds by more than 50 percent," Mitchell said.

EDS didn"t disclose the dollar size of the contract.