Sun appoints AWA for national services

Sun Microsystems has appointed AWA as its national authorised service partner in Australia, effectively demoting existing partner Service Solutions.

Sun spokesperson Catherine Vissiere said the vendor put through a tender process to find a new service provider as its contract with Service Solutions was coming to an end.

The request for proposal (RFP) was put to market in September 2005 and it made a decision to go with AWA a month ago. AWA will work with Sun’s in-house support service to deliver hardware support at Sun’s customer sites starting June 16.

Service Solutions CEO Brian Noone, confirmed the service provider was previously providing hardware support to Sun customers prior to AWA's appointment.

However, his company would still be providing component level repairs, Noone said.

“We still have contracts for component repair and also screen defective Sun products. We will continue to do work shop and component level repairs,” he said.

“Sun has a couple with contracts with us and now one with AWA”, said Noone. “We have been doing work with Sun for 15 years and there is a lot of work out there and it can’t all be done by one company.”

AWA’s staff will be Sun trained and certified to provide support for customers across Australia. Vissiere confirmed AWA will also take on trained Sun staff from Service Solutions so there will be no loss of jobs due to the change over.