Exhibit 2.1


                                                             [GRAPHIC OMITTED]


                                                                  NEWS RELEASE


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



                                       CONTACT: Rich Phillips
                                                NIC
                                                (877) 445-4306
                                                rich@nicusa.com



        NIC COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF EGOVERNMENT APPLICATION LEADER
                              SDR TECHNOLOGIES

 NEW DIVISION WILL DEVELOP NEXT-GENERATION SOLUTIONS AND GLOBAL EGOVERNMENT
                                PARTNERSHIPS

OVERLAND PARK, KAN. - (MAY 15, 2000) - NIC (Nasdaq: EGOV), the world's
largest eGovernment solutions provider, today announced it has completed
its acquisition of SDR Technologies, Inc. ("SDR"). SDR will become two new
divisions of NIC: NIC Technologies and NIC Global.

NIC Technologies will be charged with developing new applications and
services and integrating existing applications across NIC government
partnerships. During the last nine years, NIC has developed over 7,000
eGovernment applications. NIC Technologies will be responsible for the
deployment of these applications and the development of new standards and
platforms for rapid deployment. NIC Technologies will also lead strategic
product development initiatives.

NIC Global will develop and manage government partnerships with foreign
governments outside the United States. The division will initially target
Asia, the Pacific Rim and Europe.

Together, NIC and SDR have government partnerships in 23 states
representing more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. NIC Technologies'
customers include the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the states of
Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Michigan,
Missouri, Texas and Washington, and the province of British Columbia,
Canada.

"The acquisition of SDR will enable us to extend our leadership position in
enterprise-wide portal management to the application and services
business," said Jim Dodd, President and CEO of NIC. "Now that the
acquisition is complete, we can move quickly to realize our vision for
end-to-end eGovernment. We expect to rapidly deploy new services and
solutions based on the intellectual property of both our companies that
will help us accelerate growth and deliver the next-generation of
eGovernment solutions to our government partners both in the United States
and abroad."

Don Smeltzer will serve as president of NIC Technologies. Kelly Kimball
will serve as president of NIC Global.

Said Kimball, "NIC is in an even stronger leadership position today than
they were the day we agreed to bring our two companies together. This is a
great deal for our partners, for our shareholders and for the growth of the
eGovernment market."

NIC will issue approximately 1.9 million shares of common stock and
approximately 230,000 options to purchase NIC common stock to the
shareholders of SDR. The transaction closed on Thursday, May 11 and will be
accounted for as a purchase.

ABOUT NIC
NIC is the world's largest eGovernment solutions provider dedicated to
positively transforming the relationships among citizens, businesses and
government. Through federal, state, local and global government
partnerships, NIC manages millions of transactions and thousands of
applications accessible to more than 150 million people worldwide. For more
information, visit NIC at www.nicusa.com.

Special Note: The statements in this release regarding continued
implementation of NIC's business model and its development of new products
and services are forward-looking statements. There are a number of
important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements. These
include, among others, the success of the Company in signing contracts with
new states and government agencies, including continued favorable
government legislation; NIC's ability to develop new services; existing
states and agencies adopting those new services; acceptance of e-government
solutions by businesses and citizens; competition; and general economic
conditions and the other important cautionary statements and risk factors
described in NIC's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 10, 2000 with
the Securities and Exchange Commission.