Digital Government
EC plans due Feb. 15
The Office of Management and Budget has given agencies until Feb. 15 to submit a report outlining how they used electronic commerce during the last fiscal year and how they plan to execute the government's strategic plan for electronic purchasing and payment. OMB released its longawaited memorandu
Digital Government
NIMA taps 15 firms for mapping
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency last week awarded contracts to 15 vendors under a $500 million program to create detailed maps and charts based on digital data gathered by satellite and aircraft, potentially paving the way for a greater reliance on commercial mapmaking services. The fivey
Digital Government
Litton/PRC nabs outsourcing deal
The first phase of the General Services Administration's Seat Management desktop outsourcing implementation should be finished by summer, serving as a model for other federal agencies looking at the contract, agency officials said. GSA is the first agency to use the Federal Technology Service's $9
Digital Government
Nexor offers security for directories
Messaging and directory vendor Nexor Ltd. last month unveiled an applicationlevel firewall for directories that is designed to protect sensitive agency data from unauthorized users. Called the Directory Boundary Agent (DBA), the product is designed to work with directories that are based on the Li
People
DOD readies rollout of JTAV logistics system
The Defense Department this spring plans to release the first version of an application designed to solve a problem that has plagued every military commander from Charlemagne to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf: keeping track of soldiers and equipment as they move across the world's battlefields. DOD plans
Digital Government
Primeon delivers Year 2000 audit services
While many vendors have developed tools to help agencies fix their Year 2000 computer problems, one company now offers a service designed to help agencies measure the success of those fixes before heading into fullscale testing. Primeon Inc., a Burlington, Mass., solutions provider, has put togeth
Digital Government
Mazei molds IRS facelift
As we approach the new millennium, one of the most critical jobs at the Internal Revenue Service involves managing a multibilliondollar program that will help the tax agency notorious for its salty customer service and obsolete technology become a friendlier, stateoftheart work place. The
Digital Government
Who to blame for the Y2K problem?
The following question is one I raised at a recent conference: The federal government is spending billions of dollars to fix the Year 2000 problem. The only reason for this problem is the fact that computer programmers routinely truncated the common fourdigit representation of years to a twodigit
Digital Government
Air Force adds 27 firms to services program
The Air Force last week awarded blanket purchase agreements to 27 additional vendors under a $750 million information technology services program, which eventually may include a mix of 75 large and small businesses. The latest round of BPAs is part of the threeyear Information Technology Services
Digital Government
D.C. group grooms students for IT careers
According to the fiscal 1999 strategic plan for the CIO Council, a key priority for information technology management will be improving the IT skills of the federal work force. The CIO Council joins the chorus of voices telling us that we face a desperate shortage of workers who possess the IT tale
Digital Government
FAA plan will reduce voice congestion in the airwaves
The Federal Aviation Administration detailed on Jan. 6 its plan to replace many routine voice transmissions between controllers and pilots with digital data messages a move designed to increase the number of aircraft that controllers can manage by reducing congestion in the airwaves.
Digital Government
Letters to the Editor
Sugarcoating bad news Steven Kelman argues that lowerstatus workers tend to take a negative bias to convince higherstatus people that they are intelligent [FCW, Dec. 7]. While I've no doubt as to its validity, I find just the opposite to be true working for the Army. Under our Project Manager an
Digital Government
Roster
Robert Kipke this month joined CritiCom Inc. as vice president of sales. Kipke previously worked as defense programs vice president at AT?#038; T Government Markets.
Digital Government
Navy: GBS back on track
The Navy said it has fixed problems that delayed deployment of a broadband satellite communications system designed to feed hundreds of channels of information to command ships, carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups constantly on station in potential world hot spots. The delay in deploy
Digital Government
OMB's McConnell to move to President's Y2K Council
Bruce McConnell, who has been instrumental in crafting and enforcing information policy at the Office of Management and Budget for more than a decade, this month will move to the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion to work on international Year 2000 issues, according to an administration so
Digital Government
NLM revamps Medline for lay audience
Although the National Library of Medicine has always provided information to the public, its resources, including online databases, were designed for medical professionals. Now the agency has developed a World Wide Web site, Medline Plus, that aims to deliver the latest medical research and healt
Digital Government
SGI debuts NT workstations
Silicon Graphics Inc., one of the industry's best known developers of highend Unixbased visualization systems, this week will introduce its first line of Microsoft Corp. Windows NTbased workstations, which company officials say will raise the bar significantly on desktop computer performance. Th
Digital Government
Industry Watch
Intel unveils new Celeron chips Intel Corp. last week introduced the next generation of its Celeron processors, which will run at 366 MHz and 400 MHz. Intel first introduced the strippeddown Celeron processor last year to make it possible for PC manufacturers to build lowcost systems for users wh
Digital Government