Aug 06 2001 - PCCW Primed for HK Cyberport Win
By Computerworld
Pacific Century CyberWorks is pegged to corner the largest of the Hong Kong Cyberport development's IT-related tenders, worth more than $12.8 million.
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Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. (PCCW) is pegged to corner the largest of the Hong Kong Cyberport development's IT-related tenders, worth more than $12.8 million, according to industry insiders familiar with the project.
Due to be officially awarded in mid-August, the tender, which carries the code name S60, is so far the highest value IT project to be outsourced for the Cyberport. The Cyberport was conceived in 1999 as a campus-style development for IT research and development and corporate offices, with a luxury residential complex sharing its prime waterfront parcel. It is under construction now.
The S60 infrastructure tender encompasses the building of an internal network, a data warehouse system, a customer relationship management system, a data center, a network operation center and video-on-demand and data-on-demand systems, according to a source close to the Cyberport project, who revealed the information to Computerworld Hong Kong on condition of anonymity.
Conflict of interest?
Despite a potentially conflicting role with its wholly-owned subsidiary Cyber-Port Ltd., which will oversee the design and construction of the Cyberport project, PCCW led a consortium to bid for the S60 tender against other groups steered by New T&T and Fujitsu Group.
The PCCW consortium also includes IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Oracle Corp. and a dozen other IT vendors, the source said.
Already, the Cyberport has been the subject of extensive criticism due to the absence of a regular tendering process for the site and its development.
However, Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau (ITBB) Deputy Secretary Annie Tam provided assurance that the tendering process for the Cyberport is open and fair. Tam said that special safeguard measures were incorporated into the bidding process to avoid the conflict-of-interest problems for IT-related tenders in which the telecommunications carrier might participate.
According to Tam, these measures include:
- ITBB monitoring of the entire tendering process. For example, ensuring no tender documents are opened before deadlines;
- determining IT project requirements after consulting with potential tenants, rather than their being fixed by only one party;
- engaging another independent technical consultant, U.K.-based Arup Communications, in addition to Hong Kong-based company Broadcast Design Group;
- consulting independent advisors, such as Professor Charles Kao, a well-known figure in Hong Kong's IT community, to review the tender proposals.
Meanwhile, according to the source, the PCCW-led consortium's proposal is currently undergoing a final review by the independent advisory group.
Formal results of the tender will be announced when details of the contract are finalized and confirmed by the technical consulting firms, the advisory group, Cyber-Port Ltd. and the ITBB. The review of the S60 proposal is scheduled to be completed early this month, the source said.
"If things go on well (with the review), the tender will very likely be awarded to PCCW and its partners," the source said.
A successful review would mean that PCCW would offer its own Internet access and network services and data center management. Third-party products likely to be adopted for the project would include IBM's Tivoli applications management software, Oracle's new 9i database, and HP's OpenView enterprise management application, the source said.
The S60 tender is the first and largest IT contract to be awarded for the Cyberport. Other IT project announcements are expected to follow within a month's time, according to industry insiders. IT projects yet to be awarded include the multimedia portal services contract (S62), the interactive kiosk network (S63), smart systems (S64) and intelligent building and facilities management systems (S67), the source said.
PCCW failed to reply to Computerworld Hong Kong's inquiries by press time.
IBM Hong Kong's Software Group Country Manager, Ernie Hu, noted that the company had not received official notification of the tender results.
While the Cyberport project will be a significant deal for his group in terms of both its dollar and publicity value, Hu said the exact value of the tender will not be confirmed until the number of end users involved is finalized by the tender issuer.
Skeptical
Many vendors are still actively involved in the tendering process and are reluctant to comment until the contracts are confirmed. However, one IT firm tendering as a subcontractor outside the PCCW camp expressed concern about PCCW's inside advantage.
The IT provider maintains that PCCW will not be able to cater to all the Cyberport project requirements. "Some of the projects should be won by other firms," he said.
Other IT vendors have expressed skepticism about how Cyber-Port Ltd. will manage the project, and the extent of its commitment to providing leading IT systems vs. its concentration on the realty potential of the development.
Some believe that with the realization that the original Cyberport scope was overly ambitious, Cyber-Port Ltd. could scale back aspects of the project on the IT side.
"They have to think from a revenue point of view," noted a vendor tendering for one of the IT contracts, and in the current economic climate, the focus is on square-footage rather than flashy IT projects.
Copyright 2001 Computerworld Hong Kong Online, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.
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