Virginia nears key review of tech service proposals

The state of Virginia expects to begin a detailed review next month of proposals received for a public-private partnership to outsource its technology infrastructure, the state's chief information officer said this week.

The state expects to move from a conceptual to a detailed review after Nov. 1 as part of a four-stage process toward awarding a contract, said Lem Stewart, Virginia's CIO and head of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency.

The proposals will be reviewed by the state secretaries of administration, finance and technology as well as Virginia Information Technology Investment Board, he said. Whether the initiative proceeds depends on the outcome of those reviews, he said.

The state wants to outsource its technology infrastructure services, including data center consolidation and operations, disaster backup and recovery, enterprise messaging and help desk support.

The state is calling the contract a "public-private partnership" because the contractor will share the risk of the project's success with the state by investing financial resources in the initiative.

The project will provide a significant opportunity for cost saving and business process change, Stewart said. If it unfolds as planned, the project would enable the state to move $500 million from utility expenditures associated with IT to modernization and redesign of business processes over the next six years, Stewart said.

The state received proposals from four teams for the initiative before the August deadline, he said. The separate proposals vary in terms of the range of services and have different names. The teams are:

· "Virginia Business Modernization Initiative," CGI-AMS Inc., Fairfax, Va.;

· "Virginia Consolidated Data Center Initiative," IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y.;

· "Virginia IT Transformation," Koll Development Corp., Dallas, and EDS Corp., Plano, Texas

· "Virginia Technology Passport Program," Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles

The companies that submitted proposals were required to pay a $50,000 proposal review fee, according to the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. The agency has posted the proposals at http://www.vita.virginia.gov/ppea/archive.cfm.