PC-WARE has many years of experience in providing professional IT services to the public sector. It derives more than a third of its revenue from public-sector bodies throughout Europe, with the European Commission in Brussels heading its list of key accounts.
Recently, Microsoft presented ‘Virtual City Hall’, a software solution developed jointly by PC-WARE and the Spanish company Spenta, at one of the industry’s leading events in Brussels.

We spoke to Andreas Helm about the development of PC-WARE E-Government solutions and their use in Europe.

Mr Helm, why is PC-WARE Information Technologies AG investing more and more in the development of E-Government solutions?

There are two simple reasons. On the one hand, the public sector is one of the biggest clients of the entire PC-WARE Group. At the same time, it is these same clients who have made it very clear that there is a need for the solutions we have developed. So we are merely responding to our clients’ requirements. Our experience has shown that we have chosen the right time to invest and lead the way in this field.

Can you tell me exactly what kinds of solution are involved?

For our clients in the public sector, the integration of different specialist procedures with internal and external workflows or processes forms an increasingly vital part of their work, with particular emphasis on issues such as security, authenticity, verifiability and integrity in connection with the use of personal data.
In response to these specific needs, we first developed solutions, such as the PC-WARE .net integration platform, under the name of PC-WARE E-Government Starter Kit (EGSK). This was followed by security server solutions such as PC-WARE’s .net intermediate and its accompanying client-side software, the OSCI Add-In, to be used with applications such as Office.

The OSCI development sounds very German. What is PC-WARE offering in the way of E-Government solutions in Europe?

We are currently working in a number of areas. As an E-Government Competence Centre we are training our partners in Europe and Asia to use our PC-WARE EGSK integration platform. We have run courses, for example, in Athens and Almaty (Kazakhstan).
Another important project is the ‘Virtual City Hall’, which we developed together with the Spanish company Spenta. 
It is a perfect complement to our EGSK integration platform in the front end area. As you probably know, our PC-WARE EGSK is more focused on the back end. As a result, local authorities can integrate the services they offer on their websites directly into the corresponding specialist procedures, thus producing a form of ‘virtual city hall’.

What progress is being made towards harmonising the different IT standards being used in the public sector?

This is a hugely important issue for us, especially with regard to the development of our solutions in the security field. As you suggested, OSCI is a purely German development. Increasingly, the OSCI standard is being used in areas such as reporting systems, the judicial system, planning, etc. Nevertheless, we are already testing and developing scenarios that not only replace the existing OSCI standard but at the same time allow for its future use right across Europe.

One last question. What is the technological basis you use for developing all your solutions?

To develop our E-Government solutions, we use standard software products from Microsoft such as BizTalk Server, Sharepoint Server, etc.
All our solutions are developed on the basis of the current .net framework, so they automatically comply with a range of existing standards.