$50m+ contract for crime-fighting IT system won by Fujitsu after no one else bid Fujitsu has been awarded a renewed contract for support and maintenance of the aging UK Police National Computer (PNC) after no other companies tendered for the work. The contract awarded to Fujitsu Services in London is worth £48 million ($56.6 million), began at the start of April, and covers a four-year period until the end …
So Fujitsu have been awarded £48 million for a four year contract to supply an new Police National Computer system over the next four years and Fujitsu have at the same time announced that they are pulling out of mainframe computers in four years time......so no backup, no service, no spares......
I supposed they are supplying all the left over surplus remaining clear out stock to the PNC and once its all been dumped on the UK, that's is they are out of it......
That is what you get I suppose when people who have never had to earn any money (or been in business) are spending money they do not know what the value of....
No, Fujitsu was awarded the contract to continue maintaining the existing system.
It's right there in the first paragraph :
"Fujitsu has been awarded a renewed contract for support and maintenance of the aging UK Police National Computer (PNC) after no other companies tendered for the work."
The fact that no one else made a bid is probably because the system is shite and nobody wants to become responsible for the impending shitstorm when the system needs to be effectively replaced.
Interesting the rest of the world is 'no-bid' - its usually as there's too much risk, don't have the specialist (proprietary) skills or its thought that Fujitsu is a shoe-in....
50mil ending up as a single source for IT system support as no-one else bid is a bit odd.
The way I read it, it is the hardware, not the software, that is the problem.
The legacy system is not being changed.
The BS-2000 OS is still being supported.
It's the SE700-30 mainframe hardware that is out of production.
Given that only Fujitsu has parts, sole-sourcing it is not unusual.
No one else bid except for Fujitsu because the contract was to continue supporting a Fujitsu mainframe until it is replaced by something that isn't a Fujitsu mainframe in a market where Fujistu mainframes are an endangered species to the point where Fujitsu don't even want to sell Fujitsu mainframes any more.
>If no one else bid then that should have been a red flag
To whom?
I suspect the Police were happy to award the contract to Fujitsu, but because of the monetary value they had to go out to public tender.
The interesting contract is going to be the one that migrates applications and data off the Fujitsu mainframe...
I would be way more concerned by someone trying to bid for this, attempting to undercut the actual manufacturer and saying they could do a better job and deliver better value for the taxpayer inside of four years while TUPE-ing across all the staff and transforming delivery to match their ways of working, all the while supporting the decommissioning of the system and preparing for its replacement by something else entirely.
The only thing more dodgy than someone trying to actually win this contract other than the incumbent would be someone coming along and buying out the incumbent so they could rinse both the legacy and replacement contracts for all they're worth.
Like what happened with Airwave.
Can you imagine how bad the environment must be that not one entity was willing to say, "I could make forty million pounds off this deal, ten million pounds every single year, and only have to keep it running and make minimal changes here and there." Even if they were hungry but unqualified. No, not one single company wanted anything to do with the monstrosity, and Fujitsu was likely forced to bid to maintain their own hellspawn against their own wishes.
The National Law Enforcement Data Service (NLEDS), which is being designed to replace both the PNC and the intelligence-sharing Police National Database (PND), was supposed to be up and running in 2020, but this has been delayed by at least five years with an estimated cost overrun of more than £400 million, according to the PAC.
Interesting - the cost overrun (not including the base cost) for the NEW system which is supposed to replace the Fujitsu is 8x the amount to extend the Fujitsu system for the time to cover the delayed delivery of the new system.
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Let's try that again, I appear to be incapable of actually cocking typing on my phone properly.
When anyone ever says they have a problem or there is a bug Fujitsu will deny it, claim there are never any bugs ever in their software or systems and then work to get you sent to prison.
A Single Action does not mean nobody else bid.
A Single Action means it hasn't gone to tender.
They can be used when you can only go to one supplier (e.g add on for supplier of an existing system), unable to get an additional quote or award is urgent and going via framework or tender would take to long.
There are some other criteria but I can't remember off the top of my head.
I would guess that in this case they would cite the existing suppliers knowledge of the system.
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