Two States Tap NIC Commerce for E-Procurement System

By William Welsh, Staff Writer


SEPT. 5 ? NIC Commerce Inc. has announced the states of Colorado and Utah plan to award the company a contract to develop an e-procurement system that both states will share.


The system will be a third-party hosted, self-funded e-procurement system. The states evaluated nine proposals before recommending Reston, Va.-based NIC Commerce to receive the award, the company announced Sept. 1.


Competing against NIC Commerce were American Management Systems Inc., Fairfax, Va.; Computer Technology Associates Inc., Bethesda, Md.; Digital Commerce Corp., Herndon, Va.; Enabling Business Technologies Inc., Arlington, Va.; Epylon Corp., San Francisco; KPMG Consulting, New York; Syscom Inc., Baltimore; and Way2Bid Inc., Springfield, Mo.


NIC Commerce's parent company, National Information Consortium Inc. of Overland Park, Kan., also manages a Web portal for Utah.


NIC Inc. is interested in adding new e-government services in those states where it has existing business, said Dave Fishman, NIC Commerce's vice president of marketing. Hence, the addition of an e-procurement site in Utah, where the company already operates a portal "confirms the idea of an integrated e-government [and] validates the e-government model that our company believes in," he said.


Among NIC Commerce's public-sector partners are the Houston-Galveston Area Council of Governments and various purchasing programs in the General Services Administration, NASA, the Air Force, Army and Navy.


NIC Commerce has strategic partnerships with financial institutions such as Bank of America, Charlotte, N.C., and Citigroup Inc., New York, to help facilitate the e-purchasing process.


NIC Commerce specializes in providing e-commerce solutions to help streamline public-sector purchasing.