Georgia taps Sun Microsystems for state portal project

Sun Microsystems Inc. has won a $7.3 million software and services contract from the Georgia Technology Authority for the state's portal, the company announced Feb. 25.

Sun of Palo Alto, Calif., will develop and integrate the state's enterprise portal and also provide an interoperable architectural framework for state government operations.

The contract includes $5.6 million for integration services and $1.7 million for 11 Sun software products. The project is funded through the Georgia Technology Authority's fiscal 2002 budget.

The Sun Open Net Environment Platform was selected over Websphere by IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., and .Net by Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., Sun said.

Sun usually bids on government portals through its partners, but bid the Georgia project as the prime contractor because the solicitation required that potential bidders own the operating system, said Tim Dowd, Sun Microsystems' national sales manager for state and local government.

For example, the majority of the state portals operated by National Information Consortium Inc. of Overland Park, Kan., run on platforms built by Sun Microsystems, he said.

EzGov Inc. of Atlanta, which will serve as a subcontractor on the project, will provide application development software and services for online state driver's license renewal, Sun said.

The application for driver's license renewal is scheduled to go live in July as the first of a number of planned online motor vehicle license and registration services, said state and company officials.

Sun has 43,700 employees and annual revenue of $18.2 billion, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas.