IBM takes a second shot at Publish Workplace contract to interchange Horizon
IBM is bidding for a Publish Workplace contract value a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of kilos, a decade after it was paid to stroll away from a contract it gained to interchange the controversial Horizon system.
Pc Weekly has discovered that the US tech large is bidding for a contract as a part of the Publish Workplace’s plan to interchange Fujitsu’s Horizon system, with DXC partnering with it on the bid.
This isn’t the primary time IBM has bid for a significant contract on the Publish Workplace. In 2013, work started on a £100m multi-supplier contract, which included IBM, however it was cancelled in 2015. The Publish Workplace needed to pay IBM hundreds of thousands of kilos of taxpayer funds for work already completed.
The contract with IBM was reported by Pc Weekly in June 2015, after Andrew Bridgen, former MP for North West Leicestershire, mentioned he had an electronic mail that proved the Publish Workplace was seeking to change Horizon.
However talking at a Publish Workplace scandal public inquiry listening to in Could 2024, Alisdair Cameron, Publish Workplace chief monetary officer who joined the Publish Workplace in 2014, mentioned there have been issues understanding the Horizon system with out Fujitsu’s assist.
“[We got] into issue comparatively rapidly as a result of nobody knew how Horizon labored … recreating it with out the assistance of Fujitsu was phenomenally troublesome,” he mentioned. “We have been actually doubtful that it might be correctly completed and rolled out by the date when Fujitsu’s contract ended, so we prolonged the assist contract with Fujitsu to provide us extra time.”
The IBM deal was by no means completed, and the controversial Horizon system continues to be used at this time.
The £323m contract now being bid for by IBM will see the profitable bidder take over the prevailing Horizon providers. It can embrace utility assist for subpostmasters, utility growth and launch administration, migration from the on-premise datacentre to the cloud, and the institution of a cloud-native back-office and channel platform.
That is Lot 1 of the Publish Workplace’s tender, for which a handful of suppliers made the shortlist.
Lot 2, value £160m, seeks a provider to supply an off-the-shelf digital level of sale (EPOS) system to interchange the Horizon entrance finish. A dozen suppliers bid for this £169m contract, however solely three made the shortlist.
Amongst them is a well-recognized face. As revealed by Pc Weekly in July final 12 months, EPOS software program maker Escher, which provided middleware within the Publish Workplace Horizon system, was eying Lot 2.
The Publish Workplace wouldn’t touch upon suppliers as a result of the tender course of is ongoing. One of many standards for suppliers, all very conscious of the Horizon troubles, is a need to make issues proper on the Publish Workplace.
The Publish Workplace scandal was first uncovered by Pc Weekly in 2009, revealing the tales of seven subpostmasters and the issues they suffered as a consequence of Horizon accounting software program, which led to probably the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past (see beneath timeline of Pc Weekly articles in regards to the scandal since 2009).
