HP helps Transelectrica leave IT worries behind for 50bn ROL

National electricity carrier Transelectrica concluded an outsourcing deal with Hewlett-Packard Romania for renting IT services (hardware, software and maintenance) yesterday.

“This is a three-year service contract worth approximately 50bn ROL ($1.5 million). As far as we can tell, we are about the third company in Romania that concludes such a deal with an IT service provider, after two banks. Instead of buying computers, printers, consumables, licences or maintenance, we’ll have them all taken care of by HP,” Jean Constantinescu, Transelectrica general manager told Ziarul Financiar.#leadend#

The HP equipment (PCs, servers, printers, storage devices) will be installed at Transelectrica and will be used by the company but will not belong to it, as explained by Marian Stoicescu, one of the HP specialists working on this project. The IT company will also supply software for the equipment (Microsoft operating systems, network management software).

Hewlett-Packard landed the contract with Transelectrica following a tender where it beat four other companies, “the leading players on the international IT market,” official sources say. The outsourcing deal is the first such contract concluded by Transelectrica with an IT company.

“We conducted surveys that show it is best to buy the entire service bundle, particularly because of the moral depreciation that occurs in two or three years. Such contracts are common practice for companies and IT service suppliers in the West, but are something new in Romania,” Constantinescu added.

Another outsourcing deal was closed last year, with Xerox Romania and Raiffeisen Bank as the parties involved. Xerox undertook to handle the management of the bank’s documents from equipment monitoring and maintenance to consumables supplying, processing and multiplication of documents for five years, in exchange for $3 million.