Singapore government is calling a series of tenders for the provision of government infrastructure services as part of providing for a smooth transition before the end of the current Standart ICT Operating Environment (SOE) contract.

Launched in 2008, the SOE aimed to consolidate the government information and communication services into a single environment. To date, up to 75,000 suites have been implemented to 96 government agencies. As the SOE contract will expire in February 2016, the government saw the needs to put new contracts in place to ensure service continuity.

A joint statement by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Communications and information, and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said that the government will continue to operate in a single environment to enhance Whole-of-Government security, inter-operability and resiliency.

The new tenders are structured to allow greater flexibility so that government agencies have more options to manage their IT infrastructure for optimal efficiency.

The new tenders will cover central core infrastructure services, upgrading of operations and maintenance of services such as messaging and collaboration services, desktops PCs, notebooks, printers, and agency facilities management.

The remaining tenders will be issued in the months ahead.

The tender will seek providers to deliver, migrate and operate (with maintenance support) the IT infrastructure within the data centres to provide the base IT building blocks required for other internal end users facing IT services — such as email and collaboration services, remote access services — to leverage on.

The tender for messaging and collaboration services to the government and statutory boards calls for services such as email, instant messaging and conferencing services will be offered based on a monthly subscription model.

The desktop PC Bulk Tender aims to supply desktops, notebooks and printers to the Government and statutory boards.

The government also issued tenders for the supply of Agency Facilities Management (AFM) support services, which will enable each agency to manage its end-user computing devices and IT infrastructure and simplify its day-to-day IT operations support.