Defence spends big with Data#3, Telstra

Australia's Department of Defence has published a list of the IT suppliers that account for the bulk of the $1.6 billion the agency spends on technology each year.

During recent senate estimates hearings, Defence CIO Peter Lawrence was asked to detail how the department distributes its IT investment annually.

The department this week provided the list of its top IT suppliers for the 11 months to May 2015 in response to the question on notice.

It revealed that during the period, the agency spent the most with Australia's leading telco Telstra, thanks in part to a deal the pair signed in 2012 to build a $1.1 billion terrestrial communications network.

Telstra will spent the next year building out the infrastructure until it is complete, at which point the contract turns to ongoing operation and maintenance of the new network.

Defence spent $140.5 million with Telstra in fiscal year 2014.

The next highest ranked supplier was Fujitsu, which last year won a three-year extension to its existing deal for distributed computing services, valued at over $200 million.

The IT provider earned a total of $86.6 million from Defence in the 11 months to May.

Accenture was ranked third in the list. The pair signed a five-year HR deal under the applications managed services partner arrangement (AMSPA) three years ago. It is leading the replacement of Defence's PMKeys HR platform.

The provider's total revenue from Defence in FY14 was $80.1 million.

The company that won Defence's centralised processing deal for almost $1 billion last year, Lockheed Martin, came in fourth on the list of Defence's IT suppliers. It took in $76.7 million from the department in the 11 months to May.

Completing the list - in order - were:

• Unisys, with $35.9 million
• IBM, at just under $24 million
• Queensland-based solutions provider Data#3 
• ABB Enterprise Software
• CSC Australia
• BAE Systems
• SAP Australia
• Oracle
• HP, and
• Microsoft - which rounded out the list with just $762,350 for most of the last financial year.

In total, Defence spent $504.4 million with its top 14 suppliers in the 11 months to May 2015.