As a former customer of Candle with the state of North Carolina, Schmidt employed the company s technology to design and implement an e- government architecture to integrate the disparate systems of 23 executive branch agencies. The hallmark of the architecture was that it had to remain flexible to accommodate changes in legislative mandates and federal programs that typically have very aggressive timelines, noted Schmidt. Regarding the power of inter-agency integration, Schmidt cites a true success story for IT in North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd in 1998. Using a portal to implement the Hurricane Floyd Relief Web site offers an example of multiple agencies working toward a common goal, providing disaster relief information to citizens impacted by a crisis. According to Schmidt, the Web allowed citizens to access multiple organizations through a single source.
Citizens make no distinction between the levels of government and the services provided by each.
Using a consistent, shared infrastructure enables a citizen-centric Web delivery of services, Schmidt added. With the CandleNet eBX, we hope to provide corporate e-businesses with the same type of integration capabilities to help them be more responsive and enhance customer satisfaction. According to Schmidt, her primary goal for CandleNet eBX is to take it into production mode with a selected set of partners. We need to demonstrate that CandleNet eBX can work, and we will look to some of our close business partners to help us accomplish that goal, noted Schmidt. About Candle Corporation Based in Los Angeles, California, Candle Corporation is one of the world s largest independent global software companies.