Civica Wins £19.4 Million NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency Licensing Order

8 January 2003, London…The NHS has placed an order worth £19.4 million over twelve months with Civica, one of the UK's most experienced specialist providers of public sector software and services. The order, to implement Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement in England, relates to a contract over three years between Microsoft and the NHS. The NHS is in the process of standardising and upgrading technology on ultimately 500,000 desktops

The Enterprise Agreement provides a more cost-effective and flexible solution to health authorities, teaching hospitals, Primary Care Trusts, Acute, Community and Mental Health Trusts. The Agreement covers upgrades to the operating system installed on desktops as well as full copies of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Client Licence and provides for greater efficiency in managing software assets, with reduced administration and fixed budgeting.

The NHS signs an annual fixed amount subscription for three years, which represents a substantial cost saving in comparison to previous agreements for the NHS.

"This is a landmark deal for Civica, which asserts our leading position in the UK healthcare market and our capability to deliver expert advice and guidance," said Steve Reynolds, managing director of Civica Services. "The Agreement is an excellent option for standardising on Microsoft products, improving compatibility of software in use and reducing technical support costs. It also greatly eases administration and lowers purchasing costs, as customers only need to report three instalments (plus any additional installations) at an annual anniversary over the three years. Because the price is fixed for the three years, it makes it easier for the NHS to budget in the long-term, safe in the knowledge that the cost won't increase."

Civica's contracts to sell products from all other software vendors under the NHS Framework agreement remains unchanged. The company is one of the foremost licensing organisations in the UK, and is a major reseller to the NHS of many popular software products, including those from Microsoft not covered by the Enterprise Agreement, Computer Associates, Corel, IBM, Network Associates, Novell, Symantec and Veritas. Civica supplies more than half of the organisations in the NHS market, and its licensing portal www.licencetoclick.com allows customers easily to buy and manage software assets online.

The Enterprise Agreement relates to the following products (as well as previous versions and any future versions that may be released during the term of the agreement):

The Enterprise Agreement relates to the following:
• Office XP Pro with FrontPage
- Word 2002, Excel 2002, PowerPoint 2002, Access 2002, FrontPage 2002, Publisher 2002, Outlook 2002

• Windows Desktop Operating System Upgrade
- Upgrade to Windows XP

• The BackOffice Client Access Licence (CAL)
- Windows 2000 CAL
- Exchange 2000 CAL
- SQL 2000 CAL
- SMS CAL (Systems Management Software)
- Site Server CAL

About Civica Ltd Civica is one of the UK's largest and most experienced providers of specialist software and services to the public sector. Formed in April 2002 from the Sanderson Group's principal public sector serving businesses, the company has an 18-year history of delivering effective software solutions in the UK and Australia, to local authorities, police forces, healthcare, criminal justice and education organisations, and major commercial firms. Civica Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, is an approved Prime Contractor for software in the UK Government's GCat procurement catalogue.