Banyan 'restarts' as ePresence

Banyan Worldwide, which produced the dominant network operating system in

the federal space until Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. came along, announced

today that it has changed its name to ePresence Inc. and has become an e-services

firm.

"We're not a startup, but more of a restart," said Mari Ryan, director

of services marketing for ePresence. "We want to help federal agencies identify

what their critical business issues are and help them to solve them."

Westboro, Mass.-based Banyan discontinued its product business Oct.

27, 1999, but will continue to support federal customers using its VINES

and StreetTalk products for at least 18 months from that day. The company

is already helping those customers with migration plans, Ryan said.

The business model for ePresence is customer-centric — "citizen-centric"

in the government market — and will include helping customers throughout

the integration process — from developing a strategy, a presentation and

applications to ensuring that they have the proper infrastructure and enterprise

IT environment to support their needs.

"You can have the best presentation in the world, but if you don't have

the infrastructure behind it, it's not going to matter," Ryan said.

She said the company has identified several issues that agencies face

as they continue to move services online, including focusing on citizens,

reducing costs, developing a World Wide Web strategy, securing data, coordinating

legacy systems and adding transactional functionality.