Digital Government

EDS gets Census' call

With the next national head count right around the corner, the Census Bureau last month awarded a twoyear, $100 million outsourcing contract to Electronic Data Systems Corp. to develop a telephone call center network to field questions from citizens filling out questionnaires for the 2000 census.

Digital Government

OMB's McConnell to move to President's Y2K Council

Bruce McConnell, who has been instrumental in crafting and enforcing information policy at the Office of Management and Budget for more than a decade, this month will move to the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion to work on international Year 2000 issues, according to an administration source.

Digital Government

FAA plan will reduce voice congestion in the airwaves

The Federal Aviation Administration detailed on Jan. 6 its plan to replace many routine voice transmissions between controllers and pilots with digital data messages a move designed to increase the number of aircraft that controllers can manage by reducing congestion in the airwaves.

Digital Government

Report: Y2K problems could close DOD chemical plant

Officials at an Army chemical disposal site for nerve gas and blister agents have seriously mismanaged Year 2000 fixes to critical computer systems, raising the possibility that the government will shut down the site at a cost of $2 million a week, according to a recently released report.

Digital Government

DOD questions international spectrum fees

The Defense Department wants to ensure it has the worldwide access to the radio spectrum needed to support battle operations, but the Pentagon's top communications official indicated today that DOD no longer wants to pay for its spectrum access abroad.

Digital Government

GSA looks to funnel IT work to small businesses

The General Services Administration today laid out new goals for tapping small businesses on large contracts, starting with its $25 billion contract for largescale information technology support services.

Digital Government

Report calls PKI key to a digital U.S. government

A fledgling technology built on public key infrastructure (PKI) will be key to the government's success in achieving the digital government envisioned by the Clinton administration, according to a report released today.

Digital Government

U.S. mulls offensive info warfare strategy

A debate is brewing in the Defense Department about whether the United States should continue to pursue offensive strategies to attack enemies via cyberspace, thereby opening the door to future coordinated and sophisticated attacks by other countries, according to an author of a recently released study.

Digital Government

GSA awards $25 billion IT services pact

The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service last week awarded its $25 billion information technology services and support contract to 10 vendors.

Digital Government

The IT Work-Force Shortage Will Outlast Year 2000

If asked today to describe their single most pressing problem, most state chief information officers would name the Year 2000 problem. I agree: Year 2000 is consuming a large amount of my time as well as Missouri's resources. But I also believe that the attention we must give the Year 2000 problem

Digital Government

Y2K Contingency Planning: What If...

When it comes to disasters, cities and counties throughout the United States are prepared to face just about anything: hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, earthquakes, mudslideseven terrorist attacks and nuclear war. But the crisis that many people expect to occur when the internal clocks on compute

Digital Government

Marketplace

Psych 101 Helps Xerox ReEngineer Documents and GTE's inResponse Rescues the Deluged Webmaster

Digital Government

This Month's State and Local IT Developments

ECommerce Appointments Challenged Congress reserved eight seats for state and local government officials on a highprofile, 19member commission that likely will set the agenda for a national Internet tax policy. But already state and local interest groups are irked. Both the National Association

Digital Government

Facilities Management: Windy City Shoulders Work Flow

Facilities management isn't something you usually notice unless it's being done poorly.

Digital Government

Local Government and the Year 2000

The political drama in Washington, D.C., in the past few months stands in stark contrast to the atmosphere at the other end of the representative spectrum these days. While Congress decides on the removal of a president, local governments are more likely to be busy with snow removal, traffic manage

Digital Government

Pennsylvania's Bold Buy

This summer, in a move that shook up its procurement patterns, Pennsylvania standardized the core desktop functions of 40,000 state workers on Microsoft Corp. software. Under the threeyear, $23.6 million deal, which covered the operating system, the office suite and email, the state expected to save $9.2 million and reap big productivity gains.

Digital Government

Littleton, Colo., Plants Investment With High Tech

Littleton, Colo.'s, shrinking economy was no little problem. In 1987, the community of 40,000 was still coping with the aftershocks of layoffs at several Texasbased oil companies when aerospace giant Martin Marietta cut its local rocket engineering staff in half. With an unemployment rate of about

Digital Government

Office 2000: For Heavy Web Users Only

The latest version of Microsoft Corp.'s Office the most popular office suite in the state and local marketis all about the World Wide Web. In fact, it is tough to tell where Office 2000's Windows applications end and the Web begins. The beta version of Office 2000, which shipped last month, is

Digital Government

We Test Six Sensational Systems

The latest crop of desktop PCspowered by 450 MHz Pentium II processorsare winners, according to a recent product comparison conducted by the FCW Test Center. All six systems we tested scored above a 7.0 on our scale of 1 to 10. In fact, we'd recommend any one of these machines as a smart buy for state and local agencies.

Digital Government

Look overseas to meet IT worker demand in U.S.

Government agencies trying to satisfy the increasing demand for highly skilled computer talent need only look at the United States' past globalization of its economy to find out how to meet the need for more workers. The U.S. public demonstrates its acceptance and willingness to participate in a gl