OPTUS AWARDS APPLICATION MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT CONTRACTS

Optus announced today that it has awarded separate multi-year IT application maintenance and support contracts to Accenture and EDS, an HP company. The announcement follows a selective tender which commenced in April 2009.

The agreements, which are effective immediately, will deliver more consistent and efficient application support and maintenance services to Optus across its IT supported application portfolio. Accenture and EDS join Mahindra Satyam, NCS and SingTel in providing outsourced application support services to Optus.

Lawrie Turner, Optus CIO said, "Although application support and maintenance services are already provided to Optus on an outsourced basis, we expect to make substantial savings by rationalising the number of suppliers we work with from over twenty today to five going forward, as a result of these new agreements. We also expect to achieve significant service level and operational improvements across our application portfolio leading to an overall better experience for our customers.

"While Accenture and EDS have previously provided application maintenance and support services to Optus, the new agreement represents a significant increase in our relationship with EDS in particular. Accenture and EDS both provided high quality, competitive bids and were chosen for their ability to meet the key selection criteria including operational capability, flexibility and security compliance, with improved commercial terms and higher levels of service."

"EDS looks forward to extending our relationship, and continuing to work with Optus to achieve significant service level and operational improvements", said David Caspari, Vice President of EDS Australia and New Zealand.

Media contact:
Liz Greene
Optus Corporate Affairs
Tel: (02) 8082 1132