EOH loses G5 contract to BTG

Johannesburg, 06 Dec 2005

Bytes Technology Group (BTG) has been awarded a three year managed services contract by construction company Group 5.

The contract previously belonged to services and consulting company EOH, which lost the contract to BTG when it was not renewed after a recent review.

After the three-year contract came to an end, it went out for tender and attracted an overwhelming number of responses that included the likes of Dimension Data and BTG, said Group 5 spokesman Gert Van Zyl.

Although EOH CEO Asher Bohbot played down the effects of the loss of the deal, sources close to Group 5 told ITWeb that the contract is valued at R20 million over the period.

Bohbot, though reluctant to go into any details, said the fact that the deal is "in other hands right now is not of great significance to EOH", adding that Group 5 is still his company`s client in some ways.

Meanwhile, Patrick Hastings, director of Advanced Technology Services (ATS) a division of BTG Systems Integration says: "We are very excited about having won this tender with Group 5. We have been working with the company for over a year starting with a pure network maintenance contract and stepping that up to a management contract. The deal was awarded to us after a closed request for proposal to five other players."

The contract covers managed IT facilities, infrastructure and managed telecoms/PBX services.

Nationally, Group 5 has seven regional offices with approximately 100 branch offices.