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State's plan to revamp Web site gets mixed reviews from experts
Thursday, May 11, 2000 By Mark Shade , capitolwire.com
HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania's push to revamp its Web site with a Microsoft-directed portal has drawn mixed reactions from officials of private Internet businesses.
Because of private business concerns, Charles Gerhards, the Ridge administration's deputy director for information technology, told attendees at a "stakeholder" meeting that the portal, PAPowerPort, will not be completely ready until September, five months after it was initially promised by Gov. Ridge.
Gerhards and officials of the Department of Community and Economic Development and the Central Pennsylvania Technology Council met yesterday with 30 business leaders to hear what they had to say about PAPowerPort.
Dennis Hetzel, editor and publisher of the York Daily Record and chairman of the government affairs committee of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers' Association, said PAPowerPort would subject the state to lawsuits by Internet companies that believe they are being left out.
"I think the state is opening a huge can of worms," Hetzel said. "It's going to be a minefield, I would think."
Speaking in favor of the portal, Howard Kramer of Vertex Internet, Lititz, Lancaster County, predicted PAPowerPort -- and others like it -- would eventually replace Internet search engines.
"I think this is great. I think this is fantastic. And I think we should be part of the solution, not part of the problem," Kramer cheered.
Gerhards said the emerging trend for PAPowerPort reviews is mixed.
"If everyone in the room says it's totally a bad idea and you go to other places and everyone is saying the exact same thing, then I think it pretty well gives you the sense that it may not be a good idea. The second piece of that is, where everyone isn't saying that it's a bad idea, it helps you kind of hone it then," Gerhards said.
In the meantime, he said, two more stakeholder meetings will be held: in Pittsburgh June 7 and in the Lehigh Valley June 8.
The state, he said, is planning to debut the front page of PAPowerPort by the end of this month. The complete PAPowerPort, which will be composed of e-government, e-education, e-citizen and e-commerce components, could arrive in the fall, Gerhards said.
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