State economic development officials are looking to revamp a website highlighting Maine products, but the site itself doesn’t need to be made here.
The Maine Department of Economic and Community Development is evaluating bidders for a contract to revamp the site that suffered a critical failure in 2016, losing data on about 2,100 Maine businesses during a migration to other servers.
In response to questions from vendors, the department stated that companies outside the United States can apply and that the work could be done outside of the country.
In its request for proposals, the department said the site was designed in the early 2000s and had only minor upgrades and enhancements through August 2016, before the failed migration.
The department launched a temporary site in November “to keep program awareness in the forefront of the consumer and to serve as the framework for a more inclusive site…,” according to the request.
The department accepted proposals through August 17, according to the state’s RFP database.
The project would involve rebuilding that site and the profiles of the Maine companies it previously featured.
“There is no data to migrate from the site that crashed,” the department wrote.
The department hopes to launch the new site March 1, 2018.