The remaining consortia which will go through to the next stage of bidding are: Atlas, an EDS-led group including Fujitsu, Cogent, General Dynamics, and LogicaCMG; RaDII, a CSC-led group including BT, CGEY, and Thales e-security; and a Lockheed Martin-led group with Deloitte Consulting, Hewlett-Packard, QintiQ, SAIC, and Unisys.

The eventual winner will be given a 10-year contract starting in early 2005, to design and build a single information infrastructure for the MoD, covering some 177,000 desktops and disparate systems worldwide.

The news is a blow to IBM, which last week lost out to BT on two 10-year contracts worth 1.5bn pounds ($2.8bn) to create and install an electronic patient record system for the National Health Service. However, the announcement is a boost to EDS, which has suffered some bad publicity surrounding its recent replacement by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young as the UK Inland Revenue’s main IT infrastructure service provider.

This article is based on material originally produced by ComputerWire.