The main purpose of this Technical Report is to identify and propose a strategic technology direction plan for Sabah. Current and projected industry technology plans are viewed within the context of their implications on Sabah’s electronic government rollout.

    In this report, the defined electronic government applications are analysed from a technology perspective. Discussions revolve around current technology issues, and recommendations for the ITMP are provided based on the various issues being discussed. Future technologies are discussed in relation to their impact on the various Sabah electronic government applications, and the possibilities of these technologies providing an environment for catalysing new applications.
 
 

Terms of Reference

    It is important that to have a common understanding of the terms of reference within which the Technical Report of the ITMP is positioned. These terms of reference are:

• Sabah.net will be the state-wide networked infrastructure (analogous in some aspects to the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor) for Sabah
• While Sabah.net will initially be a state government only intra- and inter-agency Intranet, it will over time evolve to link to the public Internet to provide public-state government and state government to federal government links
• The Sabah electronic government is the one major flagship defined for use over Sabah.net
• While multiple flagships may be rolled out over the Sabah.net infrastructure over time, the state electronic government flagship is targeted for phased completion by the year 2002
• The Sabah electronic government flagship will initially comprise 12 selected applications
• These applications will be rolled out in phases, and that phase one identifies office automation and Intranet applications to be put in place by the end of 1997
• Sabah.net will be the long term infrastructure basis for integrating the federal Multimedia Super Corridor flagships when ready to be rolled out to the states

    Select applications have been recommended as key electronic government applications for Sabah.net. The reasons for recommending these applications and their functionalities are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 of the Main Report. The following is a list of the recommended applications:

• Electronic Commerce
• Environmental Management
• Financial Management and Control
• Forestry
• Human Resource Management
• Land Use Systems
• Office Automation
• Physical Infrastructure Management
• Rural Information Access
• Social Services
• Tourism Product Management
• Fleet Management

Application Technology Matrix

    Each of these applications has an underlying technology requirement. In addition, trends and issues involving these technologies will direct the momentum of application implementation and in turn give rise to new applications and methods of using them within the state.

Table 1 outlines the selected Sabah electronic government ITMP application areas, and lists key enabling technologies that affect them.