Digital Government

Computer City starts D.C. push

Identifying the federal government as one of the prime business opportunities, Computer City Inc. has reopened four stores in the Washington, D.C., area with a plan that emphasizes services and training over the warehouse philosophy that failed in its first attempt at doing business in the region.

Digital Government

Editorial: Outsourcing wars stifle change

The Defense Department can't seem to win when it comes to modernization. Just when the Pentagon is poised to revamp its logistics operations, the program falls victim to alltoofamiliar congressional turf wars.

Digital Government

Sprint unveils new ATM-based service

Although no federal agencies will serve in the first round of beta tests of Sprint's new Project FastBreak, officials at the company said they believe the government eventually will take advantage of the plan to offer customers unlimited bandwidth for simultaneous voice, data and video transmissions.

Digital Government

U.S. to share Y2K nuclear data

The Pentagon plans to share data with the world's other nuclear powers to ensure that the Year 2000 millennium bug does not lead to an accidental nuclear exchange.

Digital Government

USAID picks CSC for Y2K fix, gear

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of a few agencies that are the furthest behind schedule in fixing computers for the Year 2000 problem, last month awarded a $192 million task order to Computer Sciences Corp. to make millennium date repairs to its legacy systems and otherwise modernize its information systems.

Digital Government

Vendor group asks Congress to kill ITOP II

Maintaining that agencies have created too many similar acquisition vehicles, an industry group last week asked Congress to terminate a $10 billion governmentwide contract planned by the Transportation Department.

Digital Government

NEAT computer tracks asteroids

NASA astronomers soon will begin using a new computer and data analysis hardware to double their efforts to find and track asteroids that may have orbits that come close to Earth.

Digital Government

Fifth-graders pick Navy ship's name

A new Navy hightech research ship that will map the world's oceans will be named USNS Bruce Heezen, which was the winning entry from a class of nine fifthgraders from Oak Lawn Elementary School, Cranston, R.I.

Digital Government

A LEGAL VIEW: Is a plan needed for subcontracting?

A contractor raised the following topic: We have been told that our company needs to develop a plan for subcontracting with small businesses to receive a government contract. Is this true? What should be in the plan?

Digital Government

Senate urges privatizing DOD finance

The Senate version of the Defense authorization bill passed last month requires the Defense Department to study the feasibility of privatizing the core operations of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Digital Government

Leasing: Still a tough sell in federal market

A year ago, observers saw leasing as the next wave that would sweep through federal procurement, providing a relatively painless way for cashstrapped agencies to get their hands on the latest technology. By this fiscal year's fourthquarter rush, many people assumed that leasing would be taking up a significant portion of agency information technology dollars.

Digital Government

FTC page provides tools for hanging up on marketers

Tired of receiving those annoying calls from telemarketers just as you are ready to sit down to dinner? If so, point your browser to www.ftc.gov/privacy to take a peek at the Federal Trade Commission's new World Wide Web page designed to inform the public on how to prevent credit bureaus, direct marketers and state departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) from sharing personal information the kind of information that may end up in telemarketers' hands.

Digital Government

CSC employee bikes to fight AIDS

Two summers ago, when Computer Sciences Corp. employee Karen Clark saw the sea of bike riders on the Mall in Washington, D.C., ending their 250mile ride to raise money for AIDS research, she did not hesitate to join them the following year in the annual AIDS Ride.

Digital Government

Commerce procurement reinvention shows the way

The Commerce Department recently conducted its third annual joint training conference for information technology and procurement professionals. The conference, which was held in Williamsburg, Va., illustrates how times have changed. A decade ago, many government IT professionals would rather have spent time with their dentist than with their counterparts in the procurement profession.

Digital Government

OMB drops three on Year 2000 tier

The departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Interior have slowed in their efforts to fix Year 2000 problems in the past three months, according to officials familiar with a draft report by the Office of Management and Budget.

Digital Government

Army, Congress at odds over WLMP

The Army and Congress remain at loggerheads on the service's $1 billion project to outsource key portions of the Wholesale Logistics Modernization Program (WLMP), with Capitol Hill vowing to stop the program and the Army planning to proceed.

Digital Government

Clinton calls for more IT research funding

President Clinton said Friday that he plans to ask for significant increases'' in the federal budget for computing and communications research and that the Office of Science and Technology Policy is developing the plan.

Digital Government

United States, Russia cooperate on Year 2000 nuclear risk

Concerned that the Year 2000 millennium bug could cause computer screens in nuclear command and control centers "to go dark" at the turn of the century, the U.S. Defense Department plans to set up a cooperative program to share early-warning-system and missile-threat data with Russia and other nuclear powers, a top Pentagon official said today.

Digital Government

Senate Y2K czar warns about possible blackouts in Year 2000

The Year 2000 problem could cause electrical brownouts and blackouts nationwide, Sen. Bob Bennett (RUtah) said today.

Digital Government

Senate panel berates OMB over outsourcing

Members of a Senate oversight committee today criticized the Office of Management and Budget for failing to push civilian agencies to identify commercial activities within their organizations that could potentially be outsourced to the private sector.