The development of the portal infrastructure and services commenced in late January, 2001,
with initial testing beginning in late April of the same year.
WREDO soon discovered that what it was doing was anything but straightforward, and that
little precedent existed, at the time, for a regional horizontal B2B portal of this type. They
also discovered that the money they had available did not go as far as they had thought it
might. Some of the difficulties which they experienced in building the portal have subsequently
been discussed by other researchers (Gengatharen & Standing, 2003; Lepa & Tatnall,
2002; Pliaskin & Tatnall, 2005). Further, to add to these difficulties, some internal issues
associated with Batteries Included meant that this company eventually split into several
bits. The part of the company that was building the portal became known as Kitchen Sink
Software, and assumed responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the Bizewest
portal. Bizewest (www.bizewest.com.au) became operational in May, 2001, but without a
payment gateway. This gateway did not become available until February, 2003, after 21
months of further development.
Once the portal was operational, getting local business online was the next step, and this
involved two parts: convincing regional SMEs to adopt the portal, and providing them with
suitable Websites to link to the portal.
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