NSW Health standardizes on Microsoft

13.04.2006
NSW Health, a government organization responsible health-care issues in the Australian state New South Wales, has announced a three-year deal to standardize all desktops, servers and core infrastructure within local and state health outlets on Microsoft gear.

The deal, worth A$36 million (US$26.3 million), includes a possible three-year contract extension.

While the desktops (around 40,000) will be standardized on Windows XP, there are no requirements to upgrade to Windows Vista when it's released. The main development platform will be .Net.

Frank Cordingley, NSW Health technology general manager, said Microsoft already had a lot of the business within NSW Health and that this deal "tidies it up".

Cordingley said the intention is not to push out Novell, which is widely used within NSW Health, but to consolidate the Microsoft environment to better manage business.

"In terms of PC operating systems and usage of Office, Microsoft has historically had the lion's share of the business and the whole purpose of the deal was to cement a relationship with a key supplier and standardize on the latest versions of products," Cordingley said.