Press Releases

Government Secures Groundbreaking Deal With Oracle For Provision Of IT Systems

Peter Gershon, Chief Executive of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) today announced a groundbreaking strategic partnership agreement with the Oracle Corporation, a major Information Technology supplier to the UK public sector.

The arrangements provide for Oracle and the UK Government to work together on ways of developing standardised systems based on common requirements. This will bring significant benefits by cutting back on costly customisation of systems, duplication of effort, and may help to deliver IT systems that work. This will contribute significantly to the Governments delivery agenda.

The deal guarantees best prices and terms on all Oracle technology products to the public sector. With transparency and standardisation built in, departments will be able to secure the best possible prices.

The arrangements represents additional value for money opportunities for the UK public sector on the purchase of all Oracle products and is on a par with the deal secured by the US government for what is a significantly larger market place.

Paul Boateng, Chief Secretary to the Treasury said:

"This groundbreaking outcome demonstrates how the collective strength arising from effective procurement practice by government can bring substantial direct and indirect value for money savings. By driving down the cost of goods and services in this way, we have been able to make real savings that can be re-deployed to fund front line public services.

Speaking of OGCs role in the negotiations Peter Gershon said:

"Support from the whole of the public sector was critical in developing a strong position for our negotiations.

"Transparency is an essential part of this approach. Oracles new pricing customer guide structure will ensure that the public sector achieves maximum value for money on all products with Oracle."

This arrangement should act as the catalyst for extending this IT partnership approaches with other suppliers. It should also lead to the use of more commonality of systems and a move away from bespoke systems in common application areas such as finance.

Lawrence J Ellison, Oracle chairman and chief executive officer said:

"This is a landmark agreement in which we will work in close partnership with the UK Government to develop standardised, more secure software systems for the entire public sector.

"Our aim is to help the UK government deliver superior service to its citizens through improved technology, while reducing the costs associated with highly customised software systems and the duplication of effort that now occurs across multiple public sector organisations."

The three-year Memorandum of Understanding represents a first in that it enables departments to see the actual cost that the rest of the public sector is paying for IT. It is effective from the beginning of February.

It will secure an average 11 per cent reduction in the cost of technology products directly and indirectly purchased from Oracle.

Last year, Oracle Corporation introduced the Software Investment Guide to give customers a simple, flexible and transparent view of its pricing and licensing. The Software Investment Guide is a global pricing initiative to help current and prospective customers better understand and manage their enterprise-wide software costs.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Established in April 2000, the OGC was set up to act as a catalyst in procurement issues and to work with civil departments to achieve best value for money in their commercial activities. Responsible for civil central government procurement policy and best practice including Construction, Property Management, IT, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), supplier relations including opening government contracts to SMEs, e-commerce including the Government Procurement Card, the Gateway Review Process, OGCbuying.solutions, including the Government buying catalogues, G-Cat and S-Cat and developing strategic procurement partnerships with the private sector.

2. The new pricing structure will be applied to all orders by UK government placed on or after 1 February 2003 and will expire 31 March 2006.

3. Oracle will offer the same terms to the UK government for all technology products as those on offer to the US government. The favourable pricing terms apply to Oracles Secure Infrastructure Bundle, which includes Oracle 9i Database and Oracle 9i Application Server.

4. Oracle and OGC will enter into regular review arrangements to monitor usage and to consider potential for mutually beneficial extension of arrangements. 5. Press enquiries to Martin Day at OGC on 020 7271 1318/1366 or e.mail at Martin.day@ogc.gsi.gov.uk or Fiona Buckley at Oracle on 01189 243334 or e.mail Fiona.buckley@oracle.com