Repeatable collaboration solutions help keep America safe.

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Government agencies must work together as never before to protect citizens from terrorist threats. Public health and safety organizations need to collaborate across jurisdictions to deter attacks, and they must plan jointly to respond to attacks that do occur.

Federal, state and local agencies throughout the nation rely on Microsoft and its industry partners for interoperable solutions to strengthen homeland security. In Missouri, for example, public safety agencies collaborate through a Web portal created by Convergence Communications, based on Microsoft SharePoint technology. In Alabama, the Law Enforcement Tactical System uses Microsoft BizTalk Server to give police access to data maintained by other law enforcement agencies statewide.

Public safety officials from 39 jurisdictions in King County, Wash., use a system built on Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Live Meeting Server to hold online planning sessions, complete with slides, documents, videos and other tools. The Michigan Health Alert Network -- supported by SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Active Directory, and based on software from Microsoft industry partner Virtual Alert -- links 180 hospitals, allowing any participant who detects signs of a possible bioweapon attack to broadcast an alert to all the others. And when dangerous incidents occur in Houston, the public school system quickly contacts parents via e-mail, phone or pager using a system built by Microsoft partner Dialogic Communications Corp.

On the federal level, Microsoft and several partners helped the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) develop the Joint Regional Information Exchange System (JRIES), a system for sharing homeland security information among officials in the 50 states and five U.S. territories.

Many DHS funding programs promote development of innovative technology solutions, and they encourage agencies from different jurisdictions to work together. States and communities may tap additional DHS sources, such as the Urban Area Security Initiative Grants program, to fund technology implementations for planning and preparedness.

"Along with an increase in federal homeland security funding, there is accelerated growth in statewide spending on these kinds of projects," said Tom Richey, Microsoft's director of homeland security. "It's not just happening in the law enforcement community, either. The health community is connecting its constituencies to each other, and in turn to the local public officials for purposes of sharing information, response and recovery, alerts, and warnings."

Chief information officers at the state, county and city level can play a vital role in implementing interoperable homeland security solutions. With their broad perspective, they help public health and safety stakeholders leverage existing applications and infrastructure for new uses. "The CIO can show homeland security planners solutions that have been productive in other areas of government and explain how these solutions will make their own operations more efficient," said Mike Byrne, Microsoft's director
of justice and public safety.

Keeping Americans safe means building an intelligent, robust and highly integrated homeland security infrastructure. Microsoft and its industry partners are delivering repeatable solutions that enable governments to make the right connections.