Anittel adds to $17m deal with new govt contract

Anittel has signed a contract with the Tasmanian government to provide local agencies with infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

It adds to a $17 million, three-year deal Anittel won in 2012 to roll out Tasmania's managed voice services.

Under the new agreement, Anittel will provide "units" of computing power and storage. Managing director Peter Kazacos described the offering as "bare bones" and said government agencies would be able to pick up and drop units according to their needs.

"More and more clients want an opportunity to buy bare bones infrastructure as a service rather than spending on managed services," Kazacos told CRN.

"For organisations throughout Australia, this is the new way to buy hardware and software."

Kazacos said the value of the contract would depend on the number of individual government agencies that take up the service. 

Anittel's service will go live in early October to considerable demand, Kazacos says.

"We already have views from the Tasmanian government that there are a number of agencies interested."

This is the second contract the Tasmanian government has awarded Anittel and one of many regional projects the company has been working on. Kazacos claims servicing regional communities is one way Anittel differentiates itself from uniform rivals.

"There's got to be competitive positioning. There are too many people in congested areas offering the same stuff. You have got to have a differentiator."

 [Related: Anittel sinks into the red]

The company is developing a custom data centre in northern Queensland, known as the Tropical Knowledge and Innovation Centre (TKIC), which is part of James Cook University's $1 billion Discovery Rise development.