Hewlett-Packard Co’s Central and Eastern European headquarters in Vienna has issued a statement reporting ‘major involvement’ in infrastructure-related public sector projects in the region. According to government account manager Michel Massain, Hewlett-Packard became the number on supplier of systems to the Czech government last year. Massain went on to claim the company is expanding the position into Poland and Hungary this year. According to government account executive, Jilles Polin, the main tenders in which Hewlett-Packard is currently involved are a $29m project to automate the Hungarian tax authority sponsored by the World Bank and a $3.6m scheme financed by the European Community programme to computerise the Bulgarian tax authority. The company is also bidding for the task of automating the Romanian statistics office. Massion declared that Dealing with highest-level contacts in governments in Central Europe and the additional complexity of working with representatives of international agencies that funding most of these projects is a challenge, even for a large company like Hewlett-Packard. Polin maintained that the company did not intend to imply by this that European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and World Bank procedures for assessing bids were too time-consuming or costly – a criticism privately voiced by some suppliers.
