The three-year deal will see Dell supply Northern Territory students and teachers - spread across 192 schools - with 4000 desktop computers and 2500 notebooks.

The vendor replaces IBM, whose previous rollout of a similar number of desktops has come to the end of its life since being deployed in 2001.

Department of Employment Education and Training CIO, Greg Moo, expects schools with sufficient funds to match the government's purchases, pushing the total amount of devices up to around 10 or 12 thousand.

"The new computers will be allocated to all schools, including both government and non government institutions," Moo said. "We will be funding one computer for every 10 kids."

While Dell will be supplying workstations, a school's agreement was signed with Microsoft in September to supply Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office to the computers, Moo said.