The Egyptian government has cancelled plans to use the UK's Government Gateway system to upgrade its IT systems. Egypt was to have been the first customer to result from a deal between the British government and Microsoft to resell the technology used to build the Gateway.
The 24 per cent royalty payment would have been the first time Whitehall has gained revenue from an IT project - previously the IPR on government projects was retained by the supplier, who could then resell it as they saw fit.
But now the Office of the eEnvoy (OeE) has told Computing the deal with Egypt will not go ahead.
'We can confirm that the Government Gateway replication agreement with Egypt will not be progressed. Following an initial pilot phase, the Egyptian government decided to develop a customised solution in-house,' said an OeE spokeswoman.
But the OeE said there is already a deal with another country in the pipeline: The Gateway is the heart of plans to put all public services online by 2005. It will allow citizens and businesses to interact with government departments over the internet.
Quelle: Computing, 26.10.2002
