Ten more companies have been added to the whole-of-Australian-Government ICT hardware and associated services panel, with HP and NEC among the companies joining the panel.

The 10 are in addition to the previous two tranches of suppliers, announced in September and October, and brings the total number of suppliers on the panel to 29.

The latest round sees ACT Logistics, Allbids.com.au, APCD, Wilson and Gilkes, HP Australia, ISI, MCR Computer Resources, NEC IT Services, Secure Bits and Server Racks join the line-up.

Acer, Dell, Mac1, Ethan Group, OPC IT and Samsung Electronics were announced in the first tranche, with agreements in place until 30 June 2018, with options to extend for up to three periods of 12 months each.

They were joined a month later by 13 suppliers including Data#3, Datacom Systems, Fujitsu, HP PPS, Lenovo and NTT Communications.

It is mandatory for non-corporate commonwealth entities to procure desktop, notebook and mobile computers, virtual desktop computers and monitors from the panel.

Procurement of associated services, servers and server racks are optional and the panel is also optional for corporate commonwealth entities and all states and territories.

Because of the ‘large number' of preferred tenderers, the Department of Finance is managing the execution of the head agreements in tranches.

Further announcements are due to be made in the coming weeks.