Pete Shelly from CapitolWire, a well-respected subscription news service based in Harrisburg, recently had a Q&A Session with George White, director of the Bureau of Desktop Technology, about the PA PowerPort project. The answers were very telling, however, because CapitolWire is a subscription service, we can't provide you the full content here. However, we strongly suggest that you contact Pete Shelly, at pshelly@epix.net , if you'd like a copy of the report - he may be able to provide it to you via e-mail at no cost. Quite frankly, everyone in the Internet business in Pennsylvania ought to get a look at the thinking exposed in this Q&A Session.

Anyway, here are the questions that are included in the Q&A:

1) What exactly is PaPowerPort?
2) What other state do you think is closest to where you are - or want to go?
3) Secretary Paese said that, by April, we'd have something up. It won't be the complete product, but where are we in development?
4) You had mentioned negotiations with Microsoft. Where does that stand? Do we have a contract or a letter of agreement?
5) Is the statement of work a public document?
6) Secretary Paese had said if a business wants to get on the Web, we'll get them there. How will that happen?
7) That would give Microsoft a huge advantage, don't you think?
8) But I'll get it cheaper through you?
9) So Pa. Small BizNet would be a Microsoft dominated service? That's where you could get the discount on their software?
10) And if I come to the site, I'll be able to find a list of other providers. I won't be locked into Microsoft?
11) A technical engine: In search engines, the big battle is to get to the top of the list. That's a huge concern - how get ranked? How will we rank the first 100 businesses?
12) You hope this will be good for the state, to make this an e-state. What if I'm a Microsoft competitor?
13) In PowerPort?
14) (More of a comment than a question) 15) How about advertising. That hasn't been ruled out. Any decisions on that yet?
16) Suppose Democratic State Committee wants to take out a banner ad that says Tom Ridge is really running for Vice President? What would you do?
17) Why would the state provide free e-mail? You don't view yourselves as competing with a tax-paying business?
18) So, why are you guys doing it?
19) And you're going to have stock quotes on the site?
20) You mentioned weather. So you'll get stock quotes and local weather. And you've mentioned news feeds. We're not going to hire reporters are we?
21) So, if CNN came in and made a proposal, would it be exclusive to MSNBC?
22) You're going to be a state-sponsored Pennlive? They have stock quotes, weather, sports. They sell advertising on that. You're going to do the same thing?
23) You said earlier you might. You expect ads in some limited way?
24) Even without the ads, though, you're going to compete with the newspapers, with phillynews.com or post-gazette.com, right? You're going to compete with Excite, with Yahoo, right?
25) How would you look at it if you were Pennlive?
26) I'm just thinking about the newspapers, because that is their big push - how to make money off the Internet?
27) I assumed when Gov. Ridge and Secretary Paese mentioned news, I thought they meant press releases. You're not going to like it put this way, but the administration is getting into the news business, right?