Sykehuspartner HF will procure a new main contract with products and services from Microsoft, which will be valid in the period 1 December 2021 until 30 November 2024, as well as a two- year option on this - until 30 November 2026. In addition to Microsoft - as a product and service provider - and Sykehuspartner HF - as a customer, ATEA is also a contract party based on its function as a dealer of Sykehuspartner HF's contracts with Microsoft - see the Doffin notice 2021-337683.
MS Office is a productivity tool from Microsoft that is sued by all employees in Helse Sør-Øst, and it is part of the EA. MS Office includes, amongst other things Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, and Skype for Business.
In recent years Microsoft has changed the above Office components from local installation on clients (PCs) - so-called on-premise - to including the use of the components, as well as associated data, in the Microsoft cloud service.
In the coming main contract with Microsoft, most of the Office components are hired as both on-premise and cloud service, or only as a cloud service.
Sykehuspartner HF will procure the Office productivity tools directly from Microsoft based on the following:
- The replacement costs from Microsoft productivity tool to any other supplier are estimated to be very large
- Microsoft can deliver the total functionality of a productivity tool - the Office components - that the contracting authority needs
- When changing the supplier of the productivity tool, there will be a risk - despite measures being taken - of data - including sensitive personal information - being lost
- Security considerations support that the contracting authority procures the entire package of the productivity tool
- Microsoft's cloud service provides storage of documents in Norway - which is necessary as the documents can include sensitive personal information
- As regards a productivity tool and storage of associated information, only Microsoft has the required maturity and completeness in the automation of security measures for cloud services, assessment of security breaches, and reporting the security status.
Sykehuspartner HF believes that the new main contract with Microsoft fulfils the terms for a procurement without a contest in the public procurement regulations, section 13-4 letter b no. 2, and no. 3, cf. section 15-1 (4) letter a, which allows reference to a product from a specific supplier when required based on the procurement's purpose.
Splitting up the Microsoft Office 'package' for productivity tools into different components - in order to assess competition in the market for each individual component - is, according to the contracting authority, not relevant as:
- the procurement of individual productivity tools - such as a spreadsheet, presentation programme - from other suppliers is economically disadvantageous. If one of the Office components is less functional compared to a competitor - it would be more expensive to procure this component from a competitor as the entire Office 'package' must be procured from Microsoft regardless.
- operational and security considerations mean that the contracting authority is looking to have as few service and product providers as possible.
Assistance for migrating the productivity tools with associated data storage from on-premise to a cloud service is included in the procurement.
Some of the software or cloud services that will be included in the main contract with Microsoft - such as MS Project, MS Visio, Power BI, and Visual Studio - are of a scope that is not significant I relation to the total scope of the contract. This also applies for the Azure cloud services and related services such as Azure Integration services and Microsoft API management.
Other content in the software and cloud services in the main contract with Microsoft fulfil the requirements in the public procurement regulations, section 13-4 letter b. no 2, and no. 3. This applies for, amongst other things, Windows operative system for clients and servers, SQL software for databases, and Biztalk software for integrations.