FEB 28 will always be memorable for Mr Stephen Yeo, 53, global IT consulting firm EDS' vice-president for South-east Asia.

After three years of hard work, he received news that the EDS-led team had been awarded a $1.3 billion, eight-year deal by the Government to provide common computing systems for 60,000 public sector workers in 74 agencies.

It beat three other contenders for the contract.

Called the Standard Operating Environment (SOEasy), this highly-sought-after project is a prize catch for two reasons.

It is the largest government IT outsourcing contract to date. The Singapore Government will also be the first in the world to roll out a public sector-wide standard computing system.

The EDS team called oneMeridian will be able to leverage on this win when it bids for similar projects later.

But the euphoria of the win was short-lived. After an evening of drinks to celebrate its success, the team got down to work the next day.

Many areas need concurrent attention. Some IT support contracts will be expiring or have expired. Transition teams must be ready to move in to take over these operations.

Public servants must also be briefed on what to expect. They will be using common brands of PCs or laptops and the same software to send e-mail, surf the Web and create office documents.

They will be able to share their work in real time with colleagues and use technologies like video conferencing for communications.

Observers will be watching closely to see if oneMeridian can ramp up operations quickly so as to roll-out the SOEasy system on time to the first 17 agencies by July1 next year.

The first agencies to have the new system include the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Ministry of Finance. All agencies must be switched over to the new system by 2010.

Transition teams must soon move into the agencies to, among other things, take inventory of equipment used and conduct end-user training.

One big undertaking here will be a major switch, that of changing the e-mail system from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange.

E-mail is the easy part. What is more challenging is managing the thousands of applications like leave application and customer databases that have been created with Lotus Notes.

Avanade, a member of oneMeridian, specialises in converting Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange and will have to help public sector agencies decide on what to do with these applications.

IBM, which sells Lotus Notes, will no longer have anything to do with the e-mail system but it will still support Notes applications. Some agencies will want to keep them because the applications run best on Notes, or converting to another software may just take too long.

Concurrently, oneMeridian will also have to build a network operations centre that will carry the new e-mail system, Internet services and other features like video conferencing. It is a key infrastructure piece as it will connect all the 74 public sector agencies in 800 locations into one national network.

Getting all this done will see the need for 850 IT experts in various fields such as project management, logistics and IT systems design.

To contain costs in a tight labour market, contract workers may be used, or the grunt work like programming can be outsourced overseas where costs are lower.

Conceived in 2005, SOEasy was a complex project that involved many consultations between IDA and industry to fine-tune it. All government agencies fall under SOEasy except for the Ministry of Defence, polytechnics, Institute of Technical Education campuses, all schools and junior colleges.

To evaluate it, the IDA had 53 public servants from various agencies go through the proposals in a four-stage evaluation process. Its work now is to make sure that oneMeridian keeps to the deadlines.

The oneMeridian team was one of four which bid for this project. The rest were Hewlett-Packard (HP)-ST Electronics, NCS-IBM and NEC-Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

The money was on either HP-ST Electronics or NCS-IBM to clinch the deal. Unfortunately, IBM quit the consortium late last year because of differences with NCS. That spat put the NCS-IBM team out of the game. NEC-CSC was never in the running. CSC, whose expertise is also in outsourcing, came into the project late, hence missing the early consultations with IDA.

By February, it was a two-horse race as the project evaluation neared completion.

The IDA summoned the two teams separately for clarifications throughout the month. In particular, the agency wanted to know if either team could meet the project's revised deadlines for implementation as the tender award had been delayed by three months.

HP-ST Electronics had good vibes from their meetings with IDA and were quietly confident that the deal was theirs. But it was oneMeridian which broke out the champagne when it won the IDA award.

How did EDS steal a march on its competitor? A few possible reasons could have swung the vote to EDS' favour.

It has vast experience in global outsourcing projects. Since it started 42 years ago, it has provided technology solutions to organisations.

A major EDS project that an IDA team visited was the US Navy, which initially awarded it a five-year, US$4.1billion contract in 2000.

But it was not smooth sailing. EDS suffered delays and lost money in the early years. But it managed to get back in control. The result: The US Navy extended EDS' contract in 2002 for another seven years for at least US$6 billion.

That EDS was open to sharing this experience with IDA demonstrated its confidence and showed its willingness to go the distance with the customer.

Complementing EDS' experience would be the expertise of its team member, Singapore Computer Systems (SCS), in helping companies keep their computing centres humming in the event a disaster strikes. Given that the Singapore e-government services were crippled in July last year because of a power failure at its data centre, SCS services would be invaluable.

More points were scored when oneMeridian brought in Mr Vinnie Madsen, the project manager who turned around the US Navy contract, to lead SOEasy. The American has been here for at least the last two years, helping to put the SOEasy proposal together and is now its project director. He was the comfort factor.

Finally, price. EDS tendered a $1.3 billion plan, $200 million less than IDA's original budget of $1.5 billion. A lower tender price and the consolidation of about 200 public sector contracts into a single deal to benefit from bulk discounts will contribute to the Government saving $500 million in operational efficiency.

Phase II bid

WHAT of the unsuccessful bidders? They can bid for Phase II of the standard computing system which is aimed at schools and polytechnics. Coordinated by the Ministry of Education, it is a larger project with 100,000 users and is likely to cost about $1 billion. Preliminary tender evaluation has started.

The same IT companies - ST Electronics, HP, IBM and NCS - will definitely form teams again to bid for it.

The $1 billion question is: Will EDS bid for this project? Bogged down with SOEasy operations, it may not have the bandwidth for another huge project. Yet it may surprise again by being a team member rather than taking the lead.

chngkeg@sph.com.sg

TARGET: Roll out the system on time to the first 17 agencies by July 1 next year. All agencies must be switched over by 2010.

TO DO: Change the e-mail system from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange.

TO DO: Conduct end-user training.

TO DO: Set up transition teams to take over expiring or expired IT support contracts.

TO DO: Keep some Lotus Notes applications? Ask the agencies.

TO DO: Build a network operations centre that will carry the new e-mail system, Internet services and other features such as video conferencing.

TO DO: Take inventory of equipment used.

TO DO: Brief civil servants on what to expect.

TO DO: Hire contract workers or outsource grunt work like programming to overseas agencies?