Unisys wins U.K. county outsourcing award

Unisys Corp. will create and manage a public information network and security service for the Kent County Council in southeastern England under a four-year outsourcing contract worth about $63 million.

One of the United Kingdom's largest regional administrative bodies, Kent County Council is looking to establish cost-effective communications and collaboration among local government agencies, and provide new information services for county residents.

Under the contract, which runs until late 2012, the U.K. subsidiary of Unisys will provide Kent with managed services and all associated hardware and software. Unisys will also design and implement a wide-area network built on a high-speed Cisco Systems Inc. backbone. The WAN, which will operate under the name Kent Public Service Network and be managed by Unisys, will provide added bandwidth for a variety of shared information services.

The network will initially connect about 1,100 public sector establishments, including county schools, council offices and libraries. It will be available to all public service bodies in the county. The added bandwidth will double many primary schools' capacity for Internet access.

Unisys, of Blue Bell, Pa., ranks No. 26 on Washington Technology's 2008 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.