IBM has won a five year, £10m deal to supply IT infrastructure and services to Kent County Council. The move is part of Kent's efforts to make its services more directly accessible for its residents.

Under the terms of the deal, IBM will retain ownership of all the hardware it provides, and will be responsible for regular upgrades and replacements.

The deal requires that kit in use by staff should be under three years old at all times. The idea is that the Council can avoid upgrade cycles, and focus its attention elsewhere. It also ties them rather nicely to IBM.

Council staff will manage the software, systems and services.

To begin, IBM will replace the existing email, storage and server environments. A so-called rolling replacement of 9,000 client devices will follow, IBM says, including ThinkCentre desktop PCs, ThinkPad notebook PCs and Tablet PCs. ®

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