Sipa president Manoo Ordeedolchest said the one-stop service was aimed at facilitating access to government services. It is a one-stop online portal that carries information for customers. It will allow users to access information and services on demand.

The portal is based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) to link together all government-agency databases. The integration will run on the Internet on IBM WebSphere software.

In the next few months, the pilot project will allow people who live in Phuket to pay their utility bills by going to the  website. "Formerly, users who wanted to pay utility bills had to go to each provider. With this service, they just click to pay them all, with a service fee of Bt10 per organisation per time," said Manoo.

Government agencies and public and private companies involved in the project include the Provincial Electricity Authority, the Provincial Waterworks Authority, International Call Service, UOB Bank, Bank of Ayudhaya, Phuket Hospital, the Immigration Bureau and the Justice Department, as well as several educational facilities. Users who want to use the services need to register a 13-digit code at the site.

Manoo said Sipa was also setting up a software-development lab in Chiang Mai province called the Software Factory, to develop core software for SOA-based businesses. It plans to develop as many as 500 core business-function software items, to encourage software developers. The Software Factory now has 10 developers.

Kittipong Asawapitchayon, country manager of the Software Group at IBM Thailand, said SOA was an IT approach that enabled business flexibility by making software assets available as reusable services, thus assisting on-demand business.

The Gartner Research Group has reported that by 2008, more than 60 per cent of enterprises will use SOA as their guiding principle for IT infrastructure that supports critical applications and processes. Many companies are using Internet service standards to improve interoperability between disparate systems.

jirapan@nationgroup.com

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation