Ezgov.com, IBM team for fed market

Ezgov.com announced Thursday that it is teaming with IBM Corp. in a move that should help propel the e-government services company into the federal market.

The companies have partnered on many state and local e-government projects, but the combination of ezgov.com's application portfolio and IBM's portal service should help them become a major player in the federal space, said Ed Trimble, president and chief executive officer at ezgov.com.

"This is a big step in that direction for us," Trimble said. "In our opinion, IBM is the premier brand at the local, state and federal levels, and their long and successful presence at the federal level is a major opportunity for us in doing business at that level."

The partnership brings together Atlanta-based ezgov.com's online government services applications with the global power and name recognition that goes with IBM hardware and software.

"Ezgov brings a whole suite of applications to our portals and allows us to integrate all of that into the back end," said Todd Ramsey, general manager of global government industry at IBM. "This is an easy way to bring a much richer portfolio to our customers."

Both Trimble and Ramsey said that the companies are in the process of identifying federal projects they are interested in pursuing.