German Federal Press Office Awards MATERNA, Aperto and Babiel General Contract for Web Activities

Support and Development of German Federal Government’s Internet Presence

MATERNA GmbH, the Berlin-based agency Aperto and the Babiel agency of Dusseldorf were awarded an extensive general contract from the German Federal Press Office (BPA) to carry out numerous activities planned up until the year 2015. The three partners will work together to bring the German government’s online presence* up to date with the latest technology, design and functions. In addition, they will take over maintenance and hosting alongside the development of all online activities.

Background: The objective of the German Federal Press Office is to inform—both offline and online—citizens in the best possible manner about the government and what it does. In addition to the heavily frequented websites www.bundesregierung.de and www.bundeskanzlerin.de, the BPA uses a range of other online offers to inform and communicate with the public. To put these websites to optimal use, the German Federal Press Office advertised for bids on a four-year general contract comprising the planning, design, migration, operation, hosting and further development of all the websites it runs.

As a general contractor with technical expertise, MATERNA will assume the overall management of all the projects and is responsible for the technical conception and implementation. The federal government’s content management solution, Government Site Builder, will be used. Aperto will serve as the specialist for the websites’ content concept, design, and barrier-free implementation. Aperto also provides the federal government with editorial consulting and extensive online positioning advice. Among other things, this includes social media and the mobile web, both of which are becoming more and more relevant. Babiel, already the BPA’s chosen partner for hosting and technical support, will continue to oversee technical operations from its computing centre, which is highly available and securely run in compliance with the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology. In addition, the Dusseldorf-based agency will take charge of the implementation of mobile applications within the team.

Three Strong Partners, One Goal

Says Dr Winfried Materna, Managing Director of MATERNA: “Winning the BPA bid is another pinnacle of all the online activities we’ve carried out for the federal government to date. Together with our partners, we cover the entire scope of skills needed for this undertaking, and therefore form an optimal alliance for our customer’s upcoming tasks.”

Stephan Haagen of Aperto’s executive board is looking forward to the tasks at hand: “Aperto has been successfully working for public-sector clients for years now including various German ministries and major institutions at the European level. We’re happy that our efforts to become the leading service provider for political communications and campaigns have been rewarded with this extensive contract from the BPA.”

Dr Rainer Babiel, Managing Director of Babiel, adds: “We have already been helping the BPA for some time now with technical issues and we’re looking forward to expanding this collaboration. We are going to utilise our expertise in important areas such as IT security, green IT and mobile services.”

*Online offers from the BPA including:

• http://www.bundesregierung.de (teilweise auch in Englisch und Französisch)
• http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de
• http://cvd.bundesregierung.de
• http://www.styleguide.bundesregierung.de
• http://www.regierenkapieren.de
• http://www.normenkontrollrat.bund.de
• http://www.konjunkturpaket.de
• http://www.deutscher-kurzfilmpreis.de
• http://www.dialog-nachhaltigkeit.de