When I wrote the piece on 2010 completion of digitization and automation at companies registry, there was a lot of response, some emotional some not, I have just selected few that illustrate the depth of responses.

Some took issue with 3Mice and the connection to Paul Kukubo, CEO ICT Board, I didnt care much who did it, the question was whether it functions or not. Will copy paste Paul’s response, after Dorcas Muthoni’s.

After all was said and done, 3Mice said the project was completed in 2007, that they can not speak about it now, that another company was given the tender or is in the process, etc.

Yes, the project was given in 2007, what was the use of giving search functionalities on the site, if the search doesn’t work? Dorcas posed the question:

So, what was the purpose of these menu options
when you worked on the GJLOS project in 2006 or 2007.
I am not sure 3Mice has any interest in commenting on the subject, they have moved on, because apparently after handing over, that is it.
This was Paul’s response:
Dorcas/listers

I am not on this forum in my capacity as a shareholder in 3mice. In any case this is duly declared. What I will do is give a general perspective about how website development as I have experienced it.
we tend to see many website projects where once the original deployment is done, there is no contractual engagement on maintenance. Often times the team approach of the original website agency is lost when the site is left to just one technical maintenance chap within the website owner organization. Too much emphasis on getting the original website well designed, little emphasis on keeping it well maintained.
I have now come to appreciate that with the public sector, in particular, the challenge may be with the budgeting process and procurement process. We certainly face the same challenges at the ICT Board with our own website maintainance.  Ideally one  needs to retain a team who can maintain both design  and technology aspects as technology evolves. Some companies do it well other struggle and therefore certain design aspects struggle.
Website development has generally been seen as a simple low cost end of the technology business. This is changing as this discussion thread indicates. How is it that Facebook is worth 100Bn USD?
Asante
Paul Kukubo
CEO.

Andrea Bohnstedt responded to Paul

Thanks for the clarification, Paul.

The online company registry struck me as a particularly useful idea, so I was baffled by the fact that a contract carried out in 2007 yielded such a seemingly useless website. So what I’d like to know – and maybe this is for more people than just Paul to answer since this wasn’t all done by the ICT Board, if I understand correctly:

If this ‘simple website’ was contracted out in 2007, was there any awareness that the company registry records would not be available in digital format (since the contract to digitise the content is only being worked on now)? I.e. was a website contracted that would have no content for …. well, for how long? Why is a project structured this way in the first place?

When you say that another process is taking place now to search and display content, then this is a complete duplication, no? Any idea when this very-useful-if-it-works website will be up and running?

Thanks, Andrea

The info on digitization made me think of the companies registry at the UK, not right to compare but I thought I would just show where we are headed http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/