ICTworks by Inveneo

The Kenyan Government is trying to consolidate and reduce its spending on computer hardware and software by centralizing purchasing within certain ministries - so reports Business Daily in Tender rule change raises stakes in ICT vending.

The switch to the single IT platform will mean that government ministries or departments will no longer have to procure computer hardware, such as computers and servers and software independently as is the case currently. This will in turn reduce the number of the computers or servers it buys annually and also the accompanying software.

For example, the 42 ministries will not have to invest on an accounting software individually, but will instead access and use one installed at the Ministry of Finance. The same will happen with the human resource and procurement-related software.

While the article quotes representatives of Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, HP, and Microsoft all saying that this change will be good for the IT industry, I believe it will only be good for the big companies in the IT industry (like Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, HP, and Microsoft).

For the smaller IT vendors, this purchasing consolidation will be very uncompetitive. The Kenyan government will only buy large lots of computers & software - too big for the smaller vendors to win or finance. In addition, the one-size-fits-all centralized purchasing doesn't take into account different computing environments or allow for experimentation by different ministries.

Yet I am not too worried by this announcement. I have confidence that individual ministries are sufficiently Balkanized to allow small vendors the opportunity to sell specific, customized solutions outside of this purchasing consolidation.

What do you think?