Fuji Xerox Australia and Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia are among the local IT providers that have been selected for the Federal Government’s new Major Office Machines (MOMs) procurement panel.
The Minister for Finance, Mathias Cormann, announced the establishment of the new whole-of-government panel on December 1.
The panel, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Finance, is aimed at providing office machines, products, and services for the Australian government under both purchase and lease contractual arrangements.
“The panel has been appointed for the next four years, with an option to extend for a further two years,” Cormann said in a statement.
“The new panel replaces the current equipment and support and managed print services panels, and will supply network printers, multi-function devices (MFDs), scanners, and support services,” he said.
The four initial panellists include Kyocera Document Solutions Australia and Ricoh Australia, in addition to Konica Minolta Business Solutions Australia and Fuji Xerox Australia.
According to the government, the MOMs panel has taken into consideration the differing needs of departments and agencies, and provides more flexibility for departments and agencies to specify their own requirements.
The new panel is also expected to offer more streamlined contract management, as it will be under the same ICT Deliverables Head Agreement as the government’s Datacentre Facilities Supplies panel and the ICT Hardware and Associated Services panel.
Third party IT providers that have been contracted by a department or agency to provide IT services will also be able to enter into a contract for MOMs products and services on behalf of the department or agency they have already been engaged by.
The creation of the new panel comes after calls in early November by the Department of Defence, for feedback from Australia’s IT providers in relation to the development of its proposed IT supplier panel overhaul, replacing its expiring Applications Managed Services Partnership Arrangement (AMSPA) scheme.
The creation of the Department of Defence’s new Information and Communications Technology Provider Arrangement (ICTPA) is aimed at making the department a “smarter and more sophisticated” buyer of IT goods and services.
Also in early November, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development announced it was on the hunt for IT service providers to join a new supplier panel arrangement it plans to launch in early 2017.
