Microsoft may soon have a new ally in its bid for global domination - of the e-government business, that is.
At the company's "Government Leaders Conference 2001" here on Tuesday, the United Kingdom unveiled the "U.K. Government Gateway" portal, developed in cooperation with Microsoft. In a press conference, Andrew Pinder, who holds the title of "e-Envoy" in Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration, said that that country and Microsoft were discussing the possibility of jointly marketing the intellectual property that Microsoft helped develop for the U.K.
In making the comments, Pinder said he wished to correct a published report that such an agreement had already been struck. Connie Dean, Microsoft's public-sector industry manager, confirmed that the Redmond, Wash.-based giant had approached U.K. officials about marketing the concept to other governments. Even in a global economy, such a deal between a government and a corporation would be, as Dean put it, "unusual."
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