Businesses ally to benefit feds

Some leading information technology companies that do business with the

federal government are banding together to expand their offerings and attract

more public-sector customers.

Electronic Data Systems Corp. on Tuesday announced a reseller agreement

with Secure Computing Corp. And JetForm Corp., a provider of e-process solutions,

announced that it has joined Siebel Systems Inc.'s alliance program as a

premier software partner.

EDS' alliance with Secure Computing will enable it to offer customers

authentication services via Secure Computing's SafeWord and SafeWord Plus

products as well as network protection via Secure Computing's firewall product,

Sidewinder.

The agreement combines EDS' business consulting and systems integration

experience with the interoperability of Secure Computing's security solutions,

enabling government agencies to choose the level of security they need with

the flexibility to expand those solutions in the future, said Chris Schwartzbauer,

vice president of business development at Secure Computing.

EDS has similar deals with other companies, including Cisco Systems

Inc., F5 Labs Inc., Entrust Technologies Inc. and RSA Security Inc.

The Siebel/JetForm alliance will enable customers to extend their Siebel

e-business applications by enabling users to complete application processes

online, thanks to JetForm's specialty — document fulfillment — said John

Hogerland, vice president of global business development and alliances at

JetForm.

"We got together because of requests from our joint customers," Hogerland

said. He added that most of those customers were from the financial services

arena, but government agencies have also shown a "significant interest"

in the alliance.

"Siebel is all about customer relationship management and, fundamentally,

citizens are customers of the government, so this could be seen as "citizen

relationship management,'" Hogerland said.