Aussie duo win NZ Govt IT deal

Gen-i and Hyro chosen for Education contract.

Solutions provider Gen-i has won a five-year, multi-million dollar contract with New Zealand’s Ministry of Education to build a web-based identity and access management service, partnering with Melbourne-based digital agency Hyro for its software.

Global solutions provider Infosys will offer ongoing management for the infrastructure and oversee the initial deployment. 

The service will be used by up to 32,000 users across the Ministry. The software-as-a-service platform will combine Gen-i’s ReadyCloud service and Hyro’s Idaptive identity management software, and will be hosted locally in Gen-i’s data centres. 

The first application is due for delivery by July this year and the full Identity Access and Management service will be deployed by November 30 2012.

The win extends an existing partnership between the NZ government and Gen-i, with the solution provider recently picked to deploy 45,000 laptops from various vendors to teachers and principals in 2500 schools across the nation over three years.

Gen-i also sits on the NZ Government’s laptop and desktop procurement panel, and provides Apple desktops, laptops and tablets under a whole-of-government strategy. The panel will grow to cover 219 government agencies, 78 councils and 2,500 schools across the country. 

Gen-i beat out three other unnamed ICT competitors in the tender process.

The company declined to provide the full value of the deal. 

Hyro’s Idaptive software is currently in use by Australia’s Victorian Education department. A spokesperson for the NZ Education Ministry said the success of the deployment in Victoria helped convince the department it would likewise be a “perfect fit”.