Digital Government

Navy inks $98.6M sked deal

The Naval Information Systems Management Center (NISMC) late last month signed an ordering agreement worth up to $98.6 million with AmeriData Federal Systems that appears to be the largest ever deal off the General Services Administration's Schedule B/C.

Digital Government

AWARDS

Price Waterhouse. An $8.7 million award to measure firstclass mail service. U.S. Postal Service, Washington, D.C. Loral ElectroOptical Systems Inc. A $3.4 million award for engineering development, support and testing necessary to field an experimental warfighting instrumentation system. Dahlgren

Digital Government

USDA launches purchase card and checking system

The Agriculture Department this month began the pilot program of an automated government purchase card and checking system that is expected to cut procurement transaction costs nearly in half.

Digital Government

Vendors balk at move to all-electronic CBD

A plan to make the Commerce Business Daily fully electronic has encountered criticism from online service providers criticism that may cause the Commerce Department to rethink its initial intention.

Digital Government

Lockheed chooses HP products for AFIS pact

Lockheed Martin Corp. has selected HewlettPackard Co. workstations and servers to build the heart of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Lockheed Martin in January captured the $109 million Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) contract, one of fi

Digital Government

Air Force halts PC sked orders

The Air Force last week nixed plans by users to buy Desktop V "killer" PC packages that vendors planned to offer on the General Services Administration schedule while protests on the megadeal are being resolved. In a memo dated May 31, the service directed all major commands "not to procure off

Digital Government

May a government contractor transfer its contract to another company?

The following question was asked by a company official: We are interested in acquiring another company that has current federal government business. Must we obtain government approval of the transaction before completing the purchase? Can the government deny such approval? In general, a government

Digital Government

House mulls role of tech in day-to-day operations

They may not be calling it business process reengineering, but the House Rules and Organization Subcommittee has begun to grapple with questions of how technology might change the way the House operates. "The goal is to determine how we can meet the internal demand for more flexibility and effici

Digital Government

Revamped rules unleash buying frenzy

Vendors holding General Services Administration Schedule B/C contracts are reporting record sales in the usually slow months of March and April, as agencies place multimilliondollar orders that were previously prohibited.

Digital Government

SunSoft announces Java toolkit, JavaOS

Hoping to appeal to government network administrators and others who work within hardtointegrate heterogeneous environments, SunSoft Inc. last week announced a Javabased toolkit for developing platformindependent network management tools.

Digital Government

FEDWIRE

IDP withdraws NTOPS complaint The Navy last week reopened the New Technology for Office and Portable Systems a $206 million acquisition of desktop and portable computers after the second of two protests was dropped. International Data Products Corp. withdrew its protest with the General Service

Digital Government

Nature of CIO Council undecided

The emerging Chief Information Officers Council could become either an influential force in information technology management and procurement or a "debating society" that shares war stories over lunch, depending on how seriously its members take their charge

Digital Government

ROSTER

Air Force Col. Edward C. Mahen received the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's 1996 Achievement Award for Outstanding Performance for his leadership role in the Bosnian Command and Control Augmentation (BC2A) initiative.

Digital Government

Intercepts

Still learning. My Bosnian remote antenna site has picked up strong signals that the muchhyped DARPA/DISA commercial Bosnian C2 network still has its share of problems. They're still having big problems with commercial power in Sarajevo and not enough backupgenerator capacity. The lesson learned

Digital Government

SoftBoard teleconferencing system attracts federal users

A ceramic whiteboard fitted with lasers is the basis of a teleconferencing system that lets discussion leaders broadcast their whiteboard notes over networks to remote attendees in real time.

Digital Government

Editorial

Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator Steven Kelman is fond of saying that the procurement world as we know it is no more. If the recent termination of the WAAS contract by the Federal Aviation Administration or the GSA/Sprint battle over FTS 2000 prices weren't enough, last week's awa

Digital Government

Codenoll to unveil fiber-based Fast Ethernet hubs

Codenoll Technology Corp. this week will unveil a new line of fiberoptic Fast Ethernet hubs at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's TechNet '96 show in Washington, D.C. The company will also highlight ADC Telecommunications' recent purchase of 50 percent of Codenoll's comm

Digital Government

Software reuse faces barriers in government sector

At one time, the process of creating software was considered 'black magic." Today, through the discipline of reuse, software can be assembled from reusable components.

Digital Government

Lawmakers urge DOD to back integrated bid

The Senate Governmental Affairs and Armed Services committees have asked the Pentagon to explain why it will not accept a single integrated bid for its multibilliondollar Defense Information Systems Network (DISN), a position long advocated by AT&T. The Defense Information Systems Agency has repea

Digital Government

Informix launches product for 64-bit platforms

With Unix hardware vendors migrating to 64bit technology, Informix Software Inc. last week enhanced its Unixbased database software for running largescale, highperformance applications. Informix OnLine Dynamic Server 7.2 provides support for 64bit platforms and a parallel backup and recovery f