CDW, Phoenix Software and Academia are among 13 resellers to taste success on a new near-£1bn universities software framework.
The latest iteration of the Software Licenses Reseller & Consulting Services Framework (SLRA) went live yesterday (23 March).
Designed to provide a compliant route for universities and other public sector organisations to purchase software and associated services, it will run for a two-year period, with a permissible two-year extension.
It has an estimated £990m purse, according to the contract notice.
CDW and Phoenix Software made it onto all eight Lots, with Academia appearing on seven.
The other ten outfits to make the grade were boxxe, Bytes, Insight, MTI, Pugh Computers, Softcat, Sync, Trustmarque, VE3 and XMA.
By size, Lot 1 (Microsoft) and Lot 4 Commercial Off the Shelf Software) are by far the largest, with estimated values of £400m and £300m, respectively.
The two Adobe Lots are worth £100m and £50m apiece, with the VMware Lot pegged at £40m.
Lots 5a, 5b and 5c (Strategic Asset Management, Cloud Readiness and Cyber Security) have a £50m predicted purse apiece.
Academia achieved ‘Rank 1’ on four of the seven Lots in which it featured, MD Mark McCormack told IT Channel Oxygen.
“While other national frameworks remain central to the sector, SLRA represents a highly respected and widely used route to market for universities,” he said.
“Achieving Rank 1 status strengthens our position as a trusted partner, enabling institutions to engage with us more quickly through direct award and benefit from a more strategic, solutions-led approach.”
Framework organiser Southern Universities Procurement Consortium (SUPC) said the new iteration differs from the previous one thanks to its “emphasis on strategic partnerships more than transactional supplier relationships”.
Once the framework is in place, universities can use it to make individual orders quickly under pre-agreed terms, it emphasised.
