Surfers of the Next Wave

Professional Services/Systems Integrators
Examples: Accenture, Andersen, Cap Gemini/E&Y, Deloitte & Touche, EDS, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers
These well-known companies can take on large jobs for massive organizations. Their strengths in the next wave of e-government will be their knowledge of problem-solving processes, a holistic perspective and their resources. Their weaknesses will be their incentive to increase revenue by generating new work or expanding current engagements instead of maximizing corporate value by working themselves out of a job. From these vendors, government executives should demand value-driven work and the highest quality talent and should pay only for true performance.

Enterprise Application Integration/Portal Providers
Examples: Epicentric, Plumtree, Iplanet, Citrix, Viador
Portal infrastructure providers offer various means of integrating the applications and information management of an enterprise for internal and external users. The wide variety of players and relative instability of this market make detailed research essential. The strength of these players is their ability to help tie together knowledge and software to deliver solutions-based services. Their weakness is that nearly all of them are based on an information-management approach that is rapidly becoming outdated. From them demand clear focus on value-added applications with a definable return on investment and clear explanations of how a particular product will evolve to incorporate solutions-based services.

10,000-Pound Gorillas
Examples: Microsoft, Oracle, IBM
Each of these players has its own vision of how Web services will evolve. And each of those visions is more concerned with protecting a company's market position and proprietary technology than delivering value and innovation to the public. Their strength is their market reach and sophistication. The obvious weakness is proprietary focus at a time when only innovation can create new players, products, services and markets. Government executives should look for teaming arrangements including these players and organizations in the other classes mentioned here.

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (ECRM)
Examples: Eloyalty, Kana, Kanisa, Siebel, Peregrine, Quiq, Centerwheel, Serviceware
Customer relationship management software has been on the market for years, yet many observers still question its value. The goal of this software is to bring information together in a helpful way that makes it easy for customer service representatives to improve service to-and thus their relationships with-their customers. Because of their intensive concentration on private sector sales and post-sales support, many of these applications may require high degrees of customization to work well in government. These players' strength is a focus on satisfying key constituencies with high levels of Web-based service and integrating enterprise data to that end. Their weakness is too tight a focus on one particular type of problem. Demand clear explanations of how this software works as a component of an overall enterprise architecture.

Searching and Solving
Examples: Verity, Autonomy, Primus, Answerfriend, Ask Me, Inxight, Semio, Inktomi, Google, Iphrase
Some of the most intensive innovation is taking place in the search space, where technology is evolving to become ever more sensitive to the user's context. Context refers to what the users are trying to accomplish and why they are doing it. Searches eventually will evolve to become guided more by problem-solving than information-seeking. The strength of existing players is direct access to large amounts of digital information. Their weakness is their focus on questions and answers and a paucity of interaction, making it difficult for them to handle deeper, more complicated service demands. Research this marketplace especially well before making choices.

Knowledge and Data Management
Examples: Lotus, SAS, Oracle, Excelon
The final category of key players contributes the organization and management of the detailed enterprise information that is going to be at the heart of completing a service transaction. Their strength is management of data. But unless data and information can be presented in the context of a meaningful problem, question or decision, they have little value. Pay attention to alliances between these players and portal and ECRM providers and demand to know how their software is evolving to make service easier and more valuable.