<p>The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) has kicked off the migration of around 6 grants systems onto one single Oracle platform, which will mark the start of a reduction of duplicate systems in the department before the department goes to tender for its lucrative IT sourcing contract that has been held by IBM since 1999.</p><p>The contract to provide IT services, mainframe, helpdesk, and storage services to the department was renewed for another four years in 2010 for AU$109 million and will be due to go to tender by the end of this year with a view to start in July 2015. Department chief information officer Paul Madden told ZDNet that the contract with IBM had been extended as much as possible, and it was time to go back to market.</p><p>"We have no option but to re-contest that. In re-contesting that, we want to make sure we have the maximum flexibility available to us in the services and the way in which those services might be provided to us," he said.</p><p>"At this stage, we don't have a fixed view on whether it is a cloud-based offering, whether it is a hosted service, or whether it is hosted by us and operated by someone else," he said.</p><p><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/au/doha-reduces-system-footprint-ahead-of-it-sourcing-tender-7000014373/">Keep reading...</a></p>