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Fujitsu has today confirmed that the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has notified the supplier of its intention to bring the multi-million pound desktop support contract, awarded in February 2010, to an end. Press reports (e.g. in The Register) suggest HP, which lost the contract to Fujitsu just last year (see Fujitsu inks DWP desktop deal and HP loses desktop deal to Fujitsu), has been asked to cover the DWP’s desktop needs in the short term. Fujitsu is ‘not able to provide further comment’ at this time and it’s not yet clear whether the contract will be re-tendered.
Fujitsu was scheduled to start work on the desktop contract in September last year. The fact that it has been terminated at such an early stage suggests to us that there were stumbling blocks of some sort in the first ‘transition’ phase of the contract as Fujitsu took over from HP. In the current economic and political climate, it’s not so surprising that the DWP took the decision to cancel the contract at an early stage rather than risk problems further down the line. Wherever the blame lies, it’s hard to imagine that this won’t reflect badly on Fujitsu’s desktop services business: a business that Fujitsu is keen to grow given its commitment to the Desktop 21 framework agreement and its track record with the Public Sector Flex shared ICT services venture in central government.
