Vendors could help e-gov boom
- By Dan Caterinicchia, Dan Caterinicchia
- Apr 12, 2000
Spending on electronic government initiatives will more than quadruple over
the next five years, and relying on specialized vendors may be the best
strategy to deal with that boom, according to analysts from the Gartner
Group Inc.
As they move toward e-government, agencies at the federal, state and local
levels will spend $1.5 billion this year on hardware, software, and internal
and external services. That spending is expected to reach $6.2 billion by
2005.
The transformation will not be easy, said French Caldwell, research director
for the Gartner Group, a Stamford, Conn.-based advising firm.
"Through 2004, more than 50 percent of all e-government will fail based
on the services citizens will be getting in the private sector," Caldwell
said in a Tuesday teleconference from Gartner's Spring Symposium in San
Diego. "The [government's] success will depend on how well contractors learn
to act like their private-sector counterparts" and how well the government
facilitates that.
Caldwell said e-government couldn't be treated in the same way as e-business
because governments are interested in relationships, not just transactions.
One way agencies can help reach citizens is to embrace new vendors, such
as ezgov.com and govWorks.com, that have
established themselves as e-government providers, Caldwell said.
"While these niche e-government providers face considerable hurdles in terms
of brand recognition and security capabilities, their highly innovative,
citizen-oriented business models deserve real attention," he said.
According to Caldwell, consistent themes in those models include:
* Performance- and transaction-based contracts.
* Public/private partnerships.
* "Zero start-up" cost methodologies.