Starbase launches federal group

Starbase Corp., which makes solutions for the production and management of Web sites and e-business initiatives, has launched a federal group based in the company's Washington, D.C.-area office.

The federal group, working with system integrators, was created to meet the growing demand for collaborative solutions in government agencies, the company announced last month.

Starbase's content management tool, eXpressroom, and its requirements management and testing product CaliberRM, are on the General Service Administration schedule through partnerships with other firms, but Starbase is hoping to secure its own schedule within the next year, said Michael Vogel, senior director of Starbase federal.

Vogel said the company has taken a "walk before you run" approach about getting its own GSA schedule so that it can focus on its core abilities. It also allows more time for the "marriage of culture and technologies" among Starbase and the two companies it acquired earlier this year: Technology Builders Inc., which developed CaliberRM, and worldweb.net Inc., providers of eXpressroom, an Extensible Markup Language-powered content management system

Starbase technology supports the cycle of creating, linking and managing the digital material that comprises e-business applications. The company's products help geographically dispersed users, with varied technical and functional backgrounds, to collaborate on the production and management of Web sites and e-business projects, Vogel said.

Since establishing the federal group in Alexandria, Va., at the end of March, Starbase has made direct federal sales to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Customs Service. The company's public-sector customers also include the departments of Transportation, Treasury, Labor, Commerce, State and Energy, the Army; the Air Force; the Navy; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The federal group has a full-time staff of four employees, but the company has taken a "channel overlay approach" to the federal market, meaning that those four people are helping the entire sales staff of more than 100 to "go after public-sector opportunities," Vogel said.

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based company has delivered several proposals to potential government customers, including a multimillion-dollar opportunity facing final approval before a review board, Vogel said.