U.S. government pushes e-deadline for suppliers

A U.S. government agency's looming deadline to have all its contracted suppliers list their products on its online exchange is being seen as a big step in getting the government e-commerce ready.

The July 1 requirement by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will increase its Internet-enabled suppliers from 4,000 to 9,000 and will put about 4 million products on the agency's online exchange, GSA Advantage.

But analysts say they believe the move is still a far cry from making federal business-to-government e-commerce a reality.

Even with the 4,000 Web-enabled suppliers, only 0.2 percent of orders from suppliers on GSA contracts are handled online, according to a recent survey by New York-based research company Jupiter Media Metrix. --Erich Luening, Special to ZDNet News