Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown Completes Suite of Online Services

Secretary of State Bob Brown announced today his office has
completed a suite of Internet eGovernment services with the addition of Uniform
Commercial Code filings online.

Online offerings available from the Secretary of State’s Office include eight
services for businesses and two services geared toward attorneys, state agencies
and the Montana public.

Brown’s office developed these services together with Montana Interactive, the
private entity that provides eGovernment services for DiscoveringMontana.com,
the official state portal.

According to MI, ten of the 65 eGovernment online services MI helped develop
over the past four years were launched by Secretary of State Bob Brown’s office,
making Brown’s office the largest provider of eGovernment services of any state
agency.

EGovernment services allow state government to provide a cost-effective and
efficient means of delivering services and information, providing access to
state agency services 24/7, when it’s convenient for Montanans.

"This is an information age and as a proprietary agency that serves the public,
it’s important that we offer our customers what they need in a way that’s
convenient for them," said Brown.

Demand for DiscoveringMontana.com services has grown from 3,957,000 accesses in
2002 to 6,894,000 in 2003. As of December 1, 2004, 11,445,000 individuals
accessed online services located on DiscoveringMontana.com.

The Business Entity Search was the first online service the Secretary of State’s
Office launched, allowing banks, attorneys and others to print business entity
certificates at their desks. Before, information on the status of Montana
businesses and corporations was available only by telephone or by stopping by
the Secretary of State’s Office in person. Certificates ordered by phone could
take a week or more to be received by mail.

Other online services include the Registered Principals Search which lists the
officers, directors and managers of corporations and limited liability
corporations, and the Uniform Commercial Code search which provides lien
information for banks and credit unions.

One online offering the Secretary of State’s Office expects to be very popular
in 2005 is Business Annual Reports Filing online.

"We brought business annual reports filing online ten months ago and had about 5
percent of our annual reports filed that way in 2004," said Business Services
Deputy Pat Haffey. "We expect to handle about 75,000 annual reports for Montana
businesses with about one in ten businesses filing online in 2005."

The most unique online offering is the Voter Verification Service, the only one
of its kind in the nation. This service lets election officials verify the
identity of voters through the state’s driver record database, allowing
Montanans who go to the polls without identification to cast a regular ballot if
they are in the driver database. The Voter Verification Service was put to use
more than 600 times during the 2004 primary, and 400 times during the recent
presidential general election.

Access all the secretary of state’s online services at http://sos.state.mt.us/,
and at http://www.discoveringmontana.com, the official state website.

About Montana Interactive
Helena-based Montana Interactive builds, operates, and maintains the online
services for Montana’s official Web site (www.DiscoveringMontana.com) and is a
wholly owned subsidiary of eGovernment firm NIC.

About NIC
NIC manages more eGovernment services than any provider in the world. The
company helps government communicate more effectively with citizens and
businesses by putting essential services online. NIC provides eGovernment
solutions for 1,400 state and local agencies that serve more than 48 million
people in the United States. Additional information is available at
http://www.nicusa.com.