For Immediate Release						May 16, 2005

MOSES Tops Century Mark

AUGUSTA, Maine - The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's
electronic licensing system has turned 100. MOSES, The Maine Online
Sportsman's Electronic System, now has 103 agents using the web-based
licensing system that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"This is a great example of how technology benefits our customers," 
said
Roland D. Martin, Commissioner, Department of Inland Fisheries and 
Wildlife.
"MOSES combines greater availability with greater efficiency."

License agents throughout the state, including 94 towns are using 
MOSES. The
MOSES system is quicker to use, and eliminates the storage of thousands 
of
paper licenses at each agent. For individual users, you can purchase 
and
print your Maine license from any computer that is linked to the 
Internet,
anytime. The online licensing system is always open, 24 hours a day, 
seven
days a week, 365 days a year.

The online sales of licenses currently numbers approximately 150,000 a 
year,
which is one third of the department's yearly license sales. 
Expectations
are that next year at this time, online sales will be at least 50% of 
the
total. This includes Internet sales as well as online agents. At this 
point
last year, there were only 10 agents online. 

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in conjunction 
with
InforMe, Maine's self-funded web portal, and MCI, one of the worlds 
largest
communications companies, worked together to design and construct 
MOSES. Now
not only can you purchase your license online, but you can print it 
out, and
use it immediately. MOSES enables the Department to provide consumers
convenient one-stop shopping for all license types and registrations 
along
with improved auditing and enforcement.

In addition to MOSES, there are over 1,000 agents statewide that sell
Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife licenses, including town
offices, Wal-Mart, sporting good stores and others. 

Currently, in conjunction with InformMe, the department provides over 
50
online services to customers. Online sales lead to direct savings to 
the
state and to license holders due to increased efficiency. In person and
phone requests for permit applications have dropped. Data entry, manual
fulfillment and scanning of licenses have dropped significantly. Staff 
time
and processing delays have been reduced for the any deer, turkey and 
moose
lotteries. Mailing costs have been reduced. Counter and mail license 
sales
have been reduced dramatically since online service has expanded as 
well. 
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