The adventure started back in February 2005, when the European Commission was searching for consultants to provide short-term operational services on the spot for the benefit of third countries receiving external aid (Central and Eastern Europe, Balkans, New Independent States, Latin America, Asia, Mediterranean, Africa, Caribbean, Pacific etc.) within the field of Telecommunications and Information Technologies.

Along the way, the European Commission has experienced several technical problems, such as the lack of shortlisted candidates, litigation procedures and other difficulties. This is the reason why the Multiple Framework contract has been re-launched 3 times since it was published for the very first time. Every time that a new procurement notice was published, the Commission established new requirements. And we have lived up to all of them!

On Friday 3, February 2006 we were notified that the consortium led by Danish Management had been pre-qualified for this project. The consortium members complementing our expertise are the following: Apri, Dieffe Scarl, Equinoccio, Helsinki Consulting Group, Independent Pictures, Instrumentación y Componentes, Remote Sensing Applications Consultants, Silicon Consult, Spintrack and University of Sunderland. The European Commission will send us the full tender dossier in short.

The framework contract has a maximum duration of 3 years. Although the contract does not have any maximum budget, the European Commission has estimated that EUR 3 mill will be spent per year on several individual assignments - each assignment will not exceed EUR 199,999.

In pursuit of the coming assignments, Danish Management together with the other consortium members will be designing project proposals within the following working areas:

1. Telecommunications, including: Telephony; Radio-broadcasting and Television; Data Transmission; Multimedia Network as well as Navigation Systems, Systems of localisation and surveillance.

2. Earth Observation, including: Meteorology and Environmental Information System.

3. Applications within Information Technology, covering: Platforms (Hardware, Software and Networks) and Applications (Packages, Expert Information Systems, Management Information Systems, Data Warehouses, Decision Support Systems); Telematic Services (e-commerce, distance education, telemedicine); Information Systems as a tool for poverty alleviation, rural telephony, community tele-centres; and Information System as a tool for knowledge management.

Since the other shortlisted companies have not been made public yet, we still do not know the names of our direct competitors, but there will be at least seven. It is worth mentioning that the conditions of the contract are the following: The framework contract will be concluded with several successful tenderers within the lot for Telecommunications and Information Technologies and for each individual assignment 3 framework contractors will be invited to submit an offer.