Digital Government

Hill OKs changes to thrift plan

The Thrift Savings Investment Fund Act of 1996 (S. 1080) which passed just before Congress adjourned last year expanded the retirement investment options available to federal employees through the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The legislation added a small capitalization stock index investment fund an

Digital Government

DOD flags MCI/BT merger

The Pentagon last month expressed concern about serious threats to national security if the proposed $20 billion merger between MCI Communications Corp. and British Telecommunications is allowed to proceed. Defense Department officials did not say they are looking to block the merger. But in a care

Digital Government

AT&T snares billion-dollar DISN pact

AT&T captured the premiere Defense Department network contract of the decade with a bid of $970 million over a nineyear period a figure far below earlier DOD estimates and roughly half the rate of competing bids. The Defense Information Systems Network Transmission ServicesContinental United Stat

Digital Government

Six firms win $214M USDA pact

The Agriculture Department last month awarded contracts worth a total of $214 million to six companies under a broad support services program open to all government agencies. The fiveyear indefinitedelivery indefinitequantity contracts for the Information Resource Management Support Services (IR

Digital Government

Hughes wins EROS follow-on

The U.S. Geological Survey last month awarded to Hughes STX Corp. a $100 million followon contract to provide technical support services for the Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center. Hughes the incumbent contractor will provide software engineering systems integration application

Digital Government

Satellite director in proper orbit

Kathleen Kelly director of the Satellite Operations Control Center (SOCC) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wasn't in her job a week when she faced her first major challenge: a serious malfunction on one of the nation's weather satellites. Early last month a hardware failure on

Digital Government

Maryland Child Support Contract Enables Quick Payment

Maryland Child Support Contract Enables Quick Payment

Digital Government

OMB, CIOs: Raines' rules require time

The Office of Management and Budget and agency chief information officers have concluded that they need more time to apply 'Raines' rules ' the set of criteria that OMB director Franklin Raines wants agencies to use to formulate their information technology budgets. At a meeting of the Chief Inform

Digital Government

Eight to share JIEO pie

The Defense Information Systems Agency last week initiated the government's latest multipleaward services program awarding eight contracts under a $610 million deal to provide engineering services. DISA's Joint Interoperability and Engineering Organization Systems Engineering program was awarded t

Digital Government

EPA buys monitoring software

In an uncommon move to secure its distributed networks agencywide the Environmental Protection Agency has purchased a software package to monitor and manage information security policy at more than 100 sites. The EPA plans to install Axent Technologies Inc.'s OmniGuard/Enterprise Security Manager (

Digital Government

Sun Microsystems debuts mainframe-class machine

Sun Microsystems Inc. this week will introduce what it calls a mainframeclass Unix server which the company will position as a platform for database consolidation and other applications that might otherwise reside in the data center. According to Sun executives the Ultra Enterprise 10000 codena

Digital Government

GAO recommends EC integration

A General Accounting Office report released earlier this month concluded that the mandated Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET) is used infrequently for procurements and recommends that an integrated strategy be developed for using other electronic commerce technologies in addition to FACN

Digital Government

Raytheon wins auction for Hughes Aircraft

Raytheon Co. last week came away the winner of a $9.5 billion bidding war for Hughes Aircraft Co. a division of Hughes Electronics Corp. In outbidding Northrop Grumman Corp. the sole competing bidder in the last week of negotiations Raytheon will pick up a full cache of federal business even beyond

Digital Government

SET-ASIDES

GAO turns back UPS complaint The General Accounting Office this month ruled against the second protest of a $625 million Air Force contract for uninterruptible power supplies and other equipment. The Air Force awarded the initial contract in June 1995 to Exide Electronics Inc. Raleigh N.C. After a

Digital Government

Proposals may create IT burden

Longawaited proposals released this month to shore up the Social Security program would require the federal government to invest possibly billions of dollars in a computer system to monitor the investments. The Advisory Council on Social Security a 13member panel that was scheduled to report a ye

Digital Government

Keyfile integrates Keyflow into Microsoft Exchange

Keyfile Corp. has shipped a new software product called Keyflow that enables users of Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange groupware to incorporate automated workflow into their applications.Keyfile which has sold its flagship Keyfile workflow package mainly to customers in the Defense and Agriculture depart

Digital Government

EMC revamps Symmetrix product line

EMC Corp. last week revamped its Symmetrix line of storage systems with six new models of mainframe and opensystems products featuring new disk drives and other components that improve capacity and performance compared with the company's current systems. The new lineup of integrated cache disk arr

Digital Government

Pacom's Shea tackles tri-service comm challenges

HONOLULU It is no surprise that the Pacific Command (Pacom) the military organization that manages land sea and air forces with responsibility for 100 million square miles of the Earth's surface would require extremely reliable and effective communications. That explains why Col. Robert Shea dire

Digital Government

Compaq introduces workgroup product

Compaq Computer Corp. today announced a workgroup server featuring Pentium Pro power and prices starting at less than $3 000. Compaq is positioning its ProLiant 800 as the entrylevel product in its ProLiant server line. While the company's ProLiant 2500 and 5000 servers target departmental and ent

Digital Government

Lawsuit to decide if e-mail, files are rubbish or records

A coalition of publicinterest groups historians and researchers last month filed a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration over a policy that allows agencies to destroy electronic mail and word processing files once they print out copies of those records. The complaint Pub