Microsoft Germany: Partnering With Government

Selected Case Studies

May 2004

The Federal Republic of Germany faces the challenge of modernizing its administration. At the federal level, a large number of government services are already available electronically as part of the BundOnline 2005 program. The Germany Online initiative, a broad-ranging federal-, state- and municipal-level e-government strategy, transcends every level of administration. In addition, the government, states and municipalities are collaborating on
20 projects that provide online administrative services and networking portals, and develop joint infrastructures and standards.

Microsoft Germany has been working with the public sector for many years and understands the particular needs of German authorities. Over the past few years Microsoft has worked with partners and public institutions to devise a comprehensive array of pilot-project solutions that use standard software to modernize public administration services. At the federal, state and municipal levels, these projects encompass IT security, interoperability and open standards. The examples below exemplify the cooperation taking place at a variety of governmental levels.

Federal Level: the German Federal Ministry of the Interior

The Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI), the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, and Microsoft recently signed an agreement for protecting critical infrastructures and IT operations. Through the agreement, initiated a year ago in a Memorandum of Understanding, the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI), the Federal Office for Information Security, and Microsoft will exchange security options and mechanisms to increase the IT security of critical infrastructures.

The federal government and Microsoft have worked together on a variety of projects aimed at increasing the security, interoperability and openness of IT systems. Microsoft is a founding member of Mcert, and collaborates with the BSI to address IT security issues including certifications in accordance with international security standards such as Common Criteria. Further, Microsoft has responded to the special requirements of public administration services in the following ways:

  • To enable the exchange of data among manufacturers, Microsoft offers customers and providers a royalty-free license for the use of Office 2003 XML formats.
  • Microsoft supports, on the basis of the .NET system architecture, the OSCI protocol standard developed in Germany, which is the foundation for secure legal transactions in the context of e-Government services.
  • Microsoft will work with the federal government to expand the interoperability of Microsoft products and support open standards. Microsoft also will continue to participate in the SAGA expert circle within the BMI on the development of standards for eGovernment applications.

Microsoft and the federal government have a long-standing relationship. In January 2004 the two parties agreed to extend by three years their license framework agreement for the Microsoft Select Program. Moreover, the new agreement contains clear improvements in certain areas for the public administration. The relationship emphasizes Microsoft’s objective of more strongly focusing on the requirements of the public administration in contractual relationships.

State Level: Departments of Justice in Rheinland-Pfalz and Lower Saxony

Justice and police departments play a key role in the process of modernizing public administration, and Microsoft is sharing its expertise in this area with several German agencies. The most recent examples of this are the jointly developed solutions between the company and the departments of justice in Rheinland-Pfalz and Niedersachsen, or Lower Saxony. Having Microsoft .NET as the technological basis enables the gradual standardization of the infrastructure on the open standard of XML. Details about both relationships follow.

Niedersachsen’s judiciary will rely on Microsoft technology for future migration as well as the development of specialised court procedures. Conventional internal service operations must be safeguarded to ensure IT support for Niedersachsen’s judiciary. The judiciary will introduce “eJustice”to further align its structures and business processes with the needs of citizens, companies and authorities, and provide new services. In addition to the online summary judgment application, the judiciary has already implemented an automated retrieval procedure for an electronic registry of deeds, which includes a hotline for external calls and the public announcement of insolvency proceedings over the Internet.

Over the next few years, the judiciary intends to upgrade its approximately 900 Microsoft servers to new Microsoft products, migrating approximately 15,000 computers to Windows® XP and using Microsoft Office 2003 for office communications. It also intends to base its EUREKA and EUREKA-FACH applications, which can be found on approximately 10,000 workstations, on the Microsoft .NET platform.

The benefit to citizens and judiciary employees was the primary reason Justice Minister Ms. Heister-Neumann chose Microsoft. An analysis undertaken by the state’s Justice Department revealed that continued deployment of Microsoft solutions offered the best economic and technological value.

On behalf of the Department of Justice of the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) has been testing electronic legal relations in Koblenz since early February 2004. As a result, lawyers and authorities will be able to use e-mail to file legally binding suits, file petitions and applications, make written submissions and access records via the Internet.

The electronic handling of business processes has already been implemented or is in the process of being implemented in many areas of the public sector. Rheinland-Pfalz recently launched a pilot project to manage legal documents and processes electronically. Until now, suits, petitions and written submissions had to be filed through the traditional mail channel. In the future, lawyers and authorities will be able to use e-mail to file legally binding suits, file petitions and applications, make written submissions, and receive electronic documents from the court via a generally accessible electronic postbox. In addition, a process is being created for accessing records and retrieving the status of proceedings via the Internet.

Microsoft technology is being used to implement the electronic legal processes, including the BizTalk® Server, which enables incoming e-mail to be processed and analyzed and the content to be prepared by special software for further usage. This will reduce much of the time-consuming administrative work for approximately 70 employees at the OVG Koblenz. In the future, the system will monitor incoming e-mail and encrypt them as needed. This project has been implemented by Microsoft Deutschland GmbH and S&L Netzwerktechnik GmbH from Mühlheim-Kärlich.

Utilizing the latest technology and applying an intelligent solution with an integrated electronic signature usage capability will not only simplify judicial workflows, but will also ensure a high degree of security for all concerned.

Municipal Level: The German Association of Towns and Municipalities

It is a challenge for many towns and municipalities to provide electronic services across multiple branches of government. Customized applications are spread across a variety of system platforms and, in the majority of cases, are not networked with one another. Due to budget considerations, outdated IT systems are frequently in use. Linking to Internet technologies often requires a great deal of effort, and sometimes he required electronic public service is either unavailable or provided under less favorable conditions. Further, intermunicipal-level cooperation is an increasingly common focus of attention for towns and municipalities. Such cooperation makes the delivery of services such as waste disposal management, the calculation of grants and allowances and the utilization of common facilities more efficient and affordable.

To overcome the obstacles to modernizing public administration services and make optimal use of the opportunities that are available, Microsoft is working with the Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund (DStGB), the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, on pilot projects aimed at producing cost-effective and scalable standard solutions for the municipalities.

The Microsoft E-Government Starter Kit has been developed in close cooperation with twelve municipalities, Microsoft Germany, the Bertelsmann Foundation and the DStGB of North-Rhine Westphalia. Based on standard Microsoft technologies, the kit uses interfaces to enable the seamless integration of public administrationapplications. By using standard technologies, additional specialist applications can be integrated over time, which will extend the range of online services provided by public administration.

Citizens can request public administration services electronically via the Internet anytime and from anywhere. The application data is transferred directly to the public administration applications via secure Internet channels, eliminating the need to record data manually, accelerating workflow and reducing administration costs.

The Community Portal resulted from cooperation between the DStGB, ekom21 GmbH (a joint enterprise for the dissemination of information in the municipalities of Hesse and the Municipal Data Processing Center of Kassel) and Microsoft Germany. The aim of the Portal is to support municipal administration during project work, project management and cooperation on new instruments and communications platforms.

The Community Portal acts as a virtual, protected workplace that offers a comprehensive means of communication. Most notably, the Community Portal facilitates the maintenance of data and archives, and enables rapid and convenient search and research procedures. It supports project management at the municipal level and enables cooperation between a wide variety of facilities beyond the municipal level.

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