Digital Government

Lotus beckons network computer users to eSuite

Lotus Development Corp. has launched new software that should make network computers a more appealing choice for federal government users. Called eSuite the product family consists of Javabased business applications that will work on any client including a PC but their greatest initial appeal shou

Digital Government

SGI opens new Reality Center

Silicon Graphics Inc. last week officially opened a new Reality Center in Orlando Fla. The new facility dedicated to virtual reality and simulation demonstrations and development is the first such domestic center outside the company's Mountain View Calif. headquarters. Its location is strategically

Digital Government

DOD slows high-speed telecom development

MONTEREY Calif. The Defense Information Systems Agency announced last week that it has adopted a slower approach to its development of advanced highspeed switching technology on communication networks that will serve all Defense Department users. DISA director Lt. Gen. David Kelley speaking here

Digital Government

Bill to call for online agency forms

Rep. Anna Eshoo (DCalif.) is crafting legislation that would require federal agencies to create online versions of all their forms and put into place mechanisms that would allow citizens to submit these forms and associated payments such as income tax payments via digital signature technology.

Digital Government

Letters to the Editor

Clarifying the finer points In your article 'Virus infects communications with Mir' [FCW Oct. 20] Jonathan Wheat senior antivirus laboratory analyst at the National Computer Security Association said macro viruses take their names from the macro language first created by Microsoft Corp. for inclus

Digital Government

Labor reawards black lung pact to CSC

The Labor Department last week awarded a $47 million contract to Computer Sciences Corp. to transform the systems that process medical benefits to coal miners with black lung disease. Under the fouryear Black Lung Support Services contract which CSC has held since 1987 CSC will move Labor's Black

Digital Government

New wares from Compaq

Compaq Computer Corp. aims to consolidate its lead in the federal network server market with four new servers announced today that offer highavailability features and multiple processors at a low price. The midrange servers smooth over gaps in the company's product line between powerful PCs that c

Digital Government

Intercepts

MONTEREY Calif. * Do it now. That's the bottom line of the message that CINCPACFLT Adm. Archie Clemins delivered at the end of his speech to Milcom '97 here. Observing that 'all the technologies to do [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Vision 2010 are here today " Clemins asked 'Why are we going to wait 12 y

Digital Government

Hill moves to halt border-crossing system

A bipartisan panel of nine senators and congressional representatives last week voiced their support of legislation that would freeze an effort by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to install an automated system to keep track of individuals crossing U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. The

Digital Government

Set-Asides

Feds get low GPRA scores House Republicans last week gave all but one of the 24 largest federal agencies a failing score on plans that outline how they will manage information technology in meeting the Government Performance and Results Act. Agencies were scored in 10 categories including data capa

Digital Government

Awards

Computer Sciences Corp. A $24.2 million award for engineering services to support submarine message processing systems. Spawar System Center San Diego. The Mil Corp. A $5.97 million award for hardware and software support services. Navy St. Inigoes Md. Unicomp Inc. A $450 000 award for generalpurp

Digital Government

Pacific Fleet makes the Web a family affair

The Pacific Fleet's operations span more than half the globe stretching from the coasts of the Americas to those in Asia and on to Africa. Thanks to a crash effort started a year ago the majority of the Navy and Marine Corps units in the Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) are just a mouse click over the horizo

Digital Government

GAO praises, criticizes SSA's Year 2000 efforts

The General Accounting Office last week presented a mixed bag of warnings and compliments to the Social Security Administration's efforts to make its computers Year 2000compliant. While praising SSA for having one of the most progressive programs to identify and fix computers so that they can prop

Digital Government

Agencies in need of electronic records management solutions

Recordswise my friends the fat is now in the fire. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman issued a summary judgment on Oct. 22 1997 agreeing that General Records Schedule 20 is arbitrary and capricious irrational and contrary to law. GRS 20 is the rule promulgated by the National Archives and Records A

Digital Government

Air Force, Navy apply brakes to additional BPAs

The Air Force and the Navy late last month stemmed the proliferation of blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) on General Services Administration schedules by restricting the number of new deals that service personnel can initiate. The Air Force's action Oct. 24 was the most drastic suspending the crea

Digital Government

Navy submariner-turned-tech-guru steers course of IT-21

SAN DIEGO Capt. Mark Lenci who manages the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT21) project here at the headquarters of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar) confesses that he had never even sent an email until two years ago. In 1995 Adm. Archie Clemins the comm

Digital Government

Feds, industry at odds over data, duties

Recommendations that the government form partnerships with the private sector to stave off an 'electronic Pearl Harbor' won praise from a Defense Department official but drew criticism from privatesector representatives during Congressional testimony last week. Air Force Gen. Robert Marsh chairman

Digital Government

IRS forms electronic signature policy

As part of the Internal Revenue Service's push to develop an electronic tax filing system the agency next month plans to issue a policy to authenticate socalled electronic signatures on tax returns. Mary Ellen Corridore management and program analyst with the IRS said the agency will identify alte

Digital Government

GAO says CIOs need focused duties and more authority

A little more than a year after the ClingerCohen Act called for creating chief information officer positions in more than 20 agencies witnesses last week told a House subcommittee that many CIOs are still encumbered with duties that keep them from focusing on management of information resources. I

Digital Government

Pentium IIs noncompliant with EPA regs

The emergence this year of new and more powerful computer chips is making it difficult for agencies to comply with a federal policy that requires them to buy PCs equipped with energysaving features according to agency executives and industry vendors. The Energy Star program created with an executi