Acer ousts Dell in QBE, SBS contracts

Acer Computer Australia has secured two major hardware supply and support contracts with insurer QBE Insurance Group and SBS television, ousting incumbent supplier Dell Computer.

The first contract, a direct sale to the Australian operation of QBE, is seeing Acer rollout 3300 Veriton desktop PCs, 500 Travelmate notebooks, 300 Altos servers, 17 inch LCD screens and 600 Wyse thin-client terminals to QBE’s Australian-based staff.

The three-year contract is worth more than $5 million. IT services outfit Intitio is providing project management services to QBE under the deal.

QBE had been a Dell customer for the past six years, said Frank Ugolini, national corporate sales manager, Acer Computer. “They ripped out Dell gear which made it all that sweet[er],” Ugolini said.

Acer won due to its ability to customise service level agreements (SLAs) and processes under the contract, said Ugolini.

For example, Acer customised ecommerce-driven product ordering so QBE’s whole IT division could see the entire product range online, he said.

In addition, the end user could only see the standard models that had been specified by the QBE IT department, he said.

Call logging and warranty processes had also been customised, he said, as QBE sites required different levels of warranty support.

Steve Squires, head of IT operations for QBE’s APACE division, said: “Other vendors traditionally take an off-the-shelf approach to SLAs and expect the customer to make them fit, but Acer developed customised processes to meet and fully service our particular IT needs.”

The second deal will see Acer reseller Leading Solutions supply 800 Veriton desktops, 200 Travelmate notebooks and 1000 19 inch LCD screens to SBS Television in a $1.5 million deal.

SBS Television had been a Dell customer for the past five or six years, Ugolini said.

SBS Television will be buying the equipment direct from Leading Solutions. The reseller would also manage SLAs, Ugolini said.

Recently, Acer was also selected as a preferred notebook supplier to SBS Radio.

“SBS wanted a customised SLA and a commitment to response times to quotations and phone calls because that was the issues they were having,” he said.