without competition
= incumbent. The bad old days of monopoly are alive and well.
The IT services arm of UK comms giant BT has won a contract extension worth up to £26 million ($32 million) for up to five years – without competition – to support Northern Ireland's government accounting system. It first worked on the system nearly 20 years ago. Planned since 2002, the procurement and implementation of a …
"The Department has commenced started a Programme of work (Integr8) to commence start the process of preparing getting ready to start for procurement of new Finance and HR technology solutions for Central Government."
so nowhere near actually replacing, and probably won't be by the end of the extension