Sun, NIC Team to Make Waves in E-Gov Market

By Nick Wakeman, Senior Editor


SEPT. 19 ? Sun Microsystems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., and National Information Consortium Inc. of Overland Park, Kan., are joining forces to pursue the electronic government market.


NIC is the first e-gov company to join the Sun Elite ServiceProvider.com program. NIC will be able to reach global government customers through the alliance.


Together, the companies will be selling electronic government solutions, with NIC providing e-gov services and Sun providing the Internet platform technologies.


"This alliance demonstrates the commitment of both companies to provide world-class Internet platforms for their government partners," said Thomas Kreidler, president of Sun Microsystems Federal. "E-government promises to change our civic institutions, and it is critical that we provide unique solutions for government that leverage the power of the Internet, while understanding the distinct differences between e-government and e-business."


NIC picked Sun as a partner after reviewing other platforms, said P.K. Agarwal, chief information officer for NIC. "This alliance will help us deliver e-government solutions built with the public trust in mind," he said.


NIC is in the process of getting SunTone Certification, which measures efforts to define and audit service provider infrastructure, operational practices, hardware, software and overall service delivery.


Certifying service delivery will be increasingly important as more government agencies outsource applications to service providers like NIC, Kreidler said.