Microsoft has been chosen by Leeds City Council as its primary IT supplier for the next five years.
The council has chosen the company as its strategic partner for IT, setting a presumption that it will use the vendor if it has an appropriate product.
Dylan Roberts, the city's head of ICT, commented that: "It's almost a case of, why not Microsoft?"
He said Leeds had evaluated four 'super vendors' — the others being IBM, Oracle and SAP — over seven months. It decided that Microsoft offered the best commercial proposition, supported by its strength in interoperability.
"We're taking a Lego bricks approach," Roberts told GC News. "It's a strategy around re-use." He said the same infrastructure software from Microsoft will be re-used for numerous different purposes, such as to provide security to processes.
He added that one exception to the presumption in favour of Microsoft could be in enterprise resource planning, where the vendor does not have a suitable system, although the city has no plans to buy in this area.
Roberts said that the framework style deal with Microsoft is a "pay as you go" arrangement, with no specific value attached to it, although it is likely to be worth millions of pounds. However, Leeds has already decided to buy Microsoft Exchange and Office Communication Server, to integrate email, instant messaging and voice communications.
He added that Microsoft will work with Leeds on planning its IT, and also on areas including digital inclusion and waste management in the city.
A document written for Leeds' executive board argues that the deal will benefit the council by increasing the use of a common applications infrastructure, allowing technical staff to specialise in fewer technologies and by lowering support and integration costs through better interoperability.
It also says that Microsoft is "very keen to establish Leeds as a major reference" site, which has helped in the city's negotiations. In return, Leeds "will be a local government showcase" for the vendor.
