The Clinton Administration's Web portal effort, FirstGov.gov, is moving at Internet time and will debut on schedule in September, according to officials from the General Services Administration.
Last Friday, GSA awarded a contract to help supplement the work being done by Internet search engine company Inktomi Corp. GSA invited a number of companies on its various contracts and supply schedules to bid after weeks of discussions helped it construct a performance-based scope of work.
"This is important," said Marty Wagner, associate administrator for GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy. "Right now it is really hard for Americans to find out about [what] the government is doing. It's the needle in a haystack problem."
Systems integrator GRC International Inc., a subsidiary of AT&T Corp., won the contract. GRC will partner with Unix hardware and software developer Sun Microsystems Inc., software developer Oracle Corp., e-business application developer AppNet Inc., knowledge management and portal developer Autonomy and Web site tester Mercury Interactive Corp.
The team will develop what GSA's chief information officer Bill Piatt calls a "Teflon portal."
"FirstGov is a non-sticky site intended to get citizens through the portal and to the information they desire as quick as possible," Piatt said. And in an effort to underscore just how fast this project is moving, Piatt stressed that "this is just week 18 of the FirstGov effort."
FirstGov.gov, will allow a full text of every government Web page currently on the Internet-currently estimated to be between 50 to 100 million pages. The site will enable the 110 million Americans currently online to conduct transactions with agencies, such as reserving a campsite at a National Park.