They are looking into the possibility of implementing electronic office environments based on the GOE concept within their own governments, Sapura Holdings Sdn Bhd executive vice president (IT business unit) Shukor Karim said.
He declined to reveal more details on which specific countries citing that talks were still in progress and confidential.
"One of the two is currently negotiating with us on terms for a memorandum of understanding while some other countries are about to pay visits to our government in Putrajaya," he said during a press briefing on GOE here today, just two days before the 4th International Advisory Panel (IAP) meeting.
GOE is a multimedia environment that enhances productivity through better information management, communications and collaboration. It aims to centrally manage, standardize and integrate basic but key functions such as collaborative messaging, scheduling, online document management and electronic task assignment.
Sapura along with Microsoft Knowledge Capital Center, Hewlett-Packard Sales (M) Sdn Bhd and EDS MSC Malaysia Sdn Bhd make up the consortium tasked with the GOE pilot project.
Microsoft Malaysia managing director Butt Wai Choon said interest shown by other countries was testament to the fact that the local developer community had shown its mettle in delivering on a product that is the first of its kind in the country and in some ways, worldwide as well.
"If other countries were to use the GOE product, the Malaysian developer community can be very proud of that as technically developing the product was very challenging and a huge amount of resources had to be spent on grooming and developing local competency," he said.
GOE, Butt added, was not merely hardware and software but largely, a cultural change process involving governments, organizations and the developer community.
About 30 local software companies are involved in building applications for the GOE application which is currently undergoing stress-testing.
The consortium believes the application will be ready for pilot implementation much earlier than first quarter of next year which is the time frame set by the Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) for all five e-government pilot projects to be implemented.
The other four are e-services, e-procurement, human resource management information systems and project monitoring systems.
The pilot phase for GOE refers to the implementation of the application in the Prime Minister's Office, Deputy Prime Minister¡¦s Office, Chief Secretary to the Government¡¦s Office, Cabinet Division and MAMPU.
Release 1 of GOE--comprising 10 modules--will be showcased at the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Expo 2000 in conjunction with the IAP meeting this week.
"We have made the GOE product modular-based to enable maximum industry participation as some government agencies want different functions and different content, so they can pick and choose. Release 2 will have an additional four modules," Shukor said, adding RM50 million has been spent to develop Release 1 alone.
The GOE consortium has also set up a venture capital fund worth RM30 million to ensure seed capital is available for continuous innovation and development of the GOE application, particularly after the pilot phase ends.
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