By Andy McCue, 10 December 2003 15:30
NEWS The BBC is looking to shortlist at least three suppliers in the bidding for its £2bn 10-year IT outsourcing contract.
IT vendors have until 9 January next year to submit initial applications to take control of the BBC Technology unit, which made a £19m profit on revenue of £220m this year and employs 1,500 people.
The winning bidder will buy BBC Technology and take over a range of services including IT hardware, systems and applications to 25,000 users; telephony; consulting; project services and broadcast system services to the BBC's infrastructure.
The sale "could include a transfer of staff from within the BBC" a contract notice said.
The BBC is looking to award the contract next autumn but James Hemmington, overseeing the procurement process at the BBC, said the timetable may change.
"The plan is to invite tenders around the end of January. From then the process is pretty flexible depending on the response from the market in terms of numbers of suppliers," he said.
Although the formal contract notice only went out this week, Hemmington said a number of companies have already expressed interest in bidding.
Comments
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1. Narayana.D
Its really credible - their focus on media coverage and technology mandate is impeccable.
2. anonymous
Is this not a white elephant for the lucky winning bidder who wins this contract?.
Is it being sold off in consideration to the latest news that the government are shifting towards linux which will leave the winning bidder with all the redundent dead wood?
3. anonymous
The core business of the BBC is making television and radio programmes for broadcast over its networks. This is not cheap, so if it already owns an efficient IT department, that actually makes a profit for the Corporation, a profit that can be fed back into programme making, this outsourcing move seems to be utter lunacy. The Corporation will be losing an income source, and in addition it will have to pay whoever does buy the IT department for a service they are getting for free at the moment.
4. anonymous
Just watch it go to India!