Digital Government
We haven't achieved acquisition nirvana
Before acquisition reform, procurements often were conducted in an atmosphere of industry ignorance and government hostility. Agencies that issued complex and ambiguous solicitations often would not answer reasonable industry questions. Companies submitted bids that were designed to win the contrac
Digital Government
Open-Source Movement Hits GIS Market
Following the lead of the opensource stalwarts who made the Linux operating system and the Mozilla World Wide Web browser respected, realworld products, developers of geographic information system (GIS) software are providing opensource tools that could become a valuable resource for state and l
Digital Government
Building consensus
Mary Mitchell, deputy associate administrator of the Office of Electronic Commerce at the General Services Administration, knows better than most people the challenges and the significance of consensus building. She learned this firsthand during her 17 years at the National Institute of Standar
Digital Government
Senate adopts advanced mail management
The technicians responsible for the Senate's email systems mark the release of independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report as a significant event in the evolution of Congress' use of email. Before the report's release last year, the email system that served the 100 Senate offices processed abo
Digital Government
Fedwire Briefs
OMB nears new FMS reg The Office of Management and Budget last week released the final revision of its changes to the regulation that requires federal agencies to buy all their financial management systems from a single contract. The changes to OMB Circular A127 will lift the requirement that agen
Digital Government
Roster Change
Jerry Russomano plans to leave his post as director of program systems service at the Education Department to become director of software development at the Customs Service. His last day at Education will be July 16, and he will step into his new role at Customs on July 19. John R. Watson was selec
Digital Government
Army jump-starts $1B global services buy
The Army has kicked off a systems integration and engineering procurement worth up to $1 billion that will provide Army installations and operations worldwide with the talent and expertise required to develop and maintain secure, stateoftheart global information technology systems. Total Enginee
Digital Government
Storage-Area Networks
As public information pours into state and local agency networks via the Internet, government data volumes are swelling beyond the capacity of existing networks and servers. To help solve the problem, state and local agencies are turning to storagearea networks to safeguard their missioncritical
Digital Government
Managing through the stacks
Network management is one of the most vital, encompassing areas of information technology and is one that requires a lot of training. As networks expand globally and support more users and more applications, network management systems are growing more complex, more automated and, by necessity, easi
Digital Government
Security, smart card tools take center stage at E-Gov
Security and smart cards highlighted last month's Electronic Government show in Washington, D.C., as vendors showcased products designed to protect data and make it safer for agencies to conduct business over the Internet. In addition, vendors seized the opportunity to preview their newest technolo
Digital Government
USPS site gives direct mail help
To a lot of people it is junk mail, but at the U.S. Postal Service it is called direct mail, and it contributes about $15 billion to USPS coffers every year, or about 25 percent of its annual revenue. That kind of money, combined with USPS' need to protect its turf, is a good reason to promote dire
Digital Government
Health Passport
When Bismarck, N.D., held focus groups earlier this year to gauge how disadvantaged mothers and pregnant women would react to using a smart card that gives them access to Medicaid, Head Start and food subsidy programs, their concerns about privacy and technology were almost nil. Instead, recipients
Digital Government
Small firm wins Army MTS pact
Comtech Mobile Datacom, which has 18 employees and annual revenues of $40 million, has bested a competitive field of bluechip aerospace companies and systems integrators to win a $418 million contract to develop the Army's Movement Tracking System (MTS). Comtech Mobile Datacom, a Germantown, Md.,
Digital Government
Senate OKs bill to restrict public access to chemical-risk info
The Senate last month unanimously passed a compromise version of a bill that would restrict public access to information about the risks of chemical accidents, especially data in electronic form. The measure, an amendment to the 1990 Clean Air Act, would prohibit for one year the disclosure under t
Digital Government
Intercepts
FEEDING FRENZY. An industry briefing that will kick off the acquisition process for the Naval Intranet (NI) this Wednesday should attract a huge crowd of systems integrators, telecom providers and PC vendors. The Navy has booked the commodious (despite its name) Little Hall at the Quantico, Va., Ma
Digital Government
Office 2000: Looking sharp and ready to go
Microsoft Corp.'s Office which overwhelmingly dominates the office suite market has never focused on bells and whistles. Instead, the suite has made its reputation through tight integration of its core industryleading applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. Office 2000, released June
Digital Government
IT helps protect endangered whale
The Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were among the organizations that late last month unveiled a new system to help ships avoid colliding with and killing an endangered whale in the North Atlantic Ocean. Starting this month, most commercial ships entering two imp
Digital Government
DOD receives low marks for IT training tools
While the Pentagon has made computerbased training programs and other technologies a centerpiece of its mammoth acquisition reform initiative, a large percentage of the Defense Department's acquisition work force lacks adequate access to those tools, according to a recent survey. Over the last sev
Digital Government
OPM flub threatens fed's refund
The Office of Personnel Management recently tried to penalize a federal employee for a mistake that the agency itself had made in collecting contributions to a retirement account. The employee took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which had an entirely different interpretation of the events t
Digital Government