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Established in 1975, Viglen is already a major supplier of PCs to the education and public sectors in the United Kingdom. The company supplies IT hardware, software and technical support to two thirds of Britain's universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. The firm's latest contract, its largest ever, was awarded as part of the government's National Grid for Learning programme.
While Viglen has deals and contracts with a variety of government institutions and corporations, almost half of its sales come from educational institutions.
The National Grid for Learning is a government initiative to develop information and communication technology (ICT) to raise standards in education across the UK. The deal will make Viglen the sole supplier of computers, hardware and services to 574 small primary schools in Northern Ireland and 20 training and support centres.
Under the terms of the three-year contract, Viglen will be working in partnership with Northern Ireland local service provider Sx3 on a rollout. The company said the rollout process would last one year, with over 5,200 workstations and 600 servers being installed.
According to Viglen, the contract will provide 52,000 pupils with computer equipment, Internet and e-mail access as well as access to learning materials. The deal also includes training, technical support and maintenance.
Of the new deal, chairman Alan Sugar said, "We are delighted to secure this contract, not only because it is the largest ever NGfL Managed Service contract awarded, but because it further endorses the wisdom of [our] strategy in focusing on the education market."
As one of only a few Becta certified organisations, Viglen is in a unique and lucrative position in the British market for hardware and services in schools. In recent months the company has signed a number of similar, although much smaller, contracts with the UK government for computers in schools. In March, it signed a similar deal worth almost STG2 million for schools in Scotland.
Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) is the lead agency for the National Grid for Learning. Becta's role is to support the Government and national agencies in the use and development of information and communication technology (ICT) to raise standards in education.
The Northern Ireland Department of Education's response to the NGfL was an integrated Educational Technology (ET) Strategy for achieving high levels of connectivity in the region's classrooms. The Classroom 2000 Project is the infrastructure aspect of that initiative and its goal is to deploy upwards of 40,000 computers to its 350,000 students and 20,000 teachers spread throughout Northern Ireland.
Viglen is a subsidiary of a holding company called Learning Technology plc that is also known for its Internet ventures arm VigEcom. Formerly Viglen Technology, Learning Technology was taken public by its parent company Amstrad when the massive UK-based consumer electronics firm was restructured. Learning Technology chairman and Amstrad founder Sir Alan Sugar owns about 70 percent of the company.
Viglen is at http://www.viglen.co.uk
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