Microsoft, GovPartner form team
- By Dibya Sarkar
- Jun 04, 2001
Microsoft Corp. and San Diego-based GovPartner have teamed to develop and
offer e-government and other technology applications to small- and medium-size
municipalities.
Officials from both companies said the partnership combines the experience
of a municipal professional services firm with one of the premier technology
and software companies. The alliance will target cities with populations
of 20,000 to 200,000.
Small- to medium-size municipalities generally are underserved because
they cannot afford the technology or the expertise to manage it, said Frank
Giebutowski, general manager of Microsoft's state and local government unit.
The partnership would offer services and options so that cities won't
have to invest large sums of money to upgrade their technology systems.
One option is based on an application service provider model, in which GovPartner
would host municipalities' software applications on the company's servers.
In this model, governments would pay a monthly subscription fee.
"This plays really well with the city manager trying to get something
going," said Giebutowski. "It gives them an opportunity to get into the
game."
GovPartner will build its products based on Microsoft technology. It
also will adopt Microsoft's .Net platform that the Redmond, Wash.-based
company touts will drive the next generation of distributed computing and
e-government solutions.
Last September, GovPartner, the technology subsidiary of Berryman & Henigar, was given an exclusive licensing deal with Sunnyvale, Calif., for
several applications it developed, including a Web-enabled permit software.
Microsoft helped develop the applications with the city.