Digital Government
Telecom in the red
According to internal General Services Administration documents, FTS 2000, the mandatory contract for federal voice and data services, was the only contract of six longdistance telecommunications contracts to make money in the first 11 months of fiscal 1998. The FTS 2000 longdistance program made
Digital Government
Intercepts
THINKING MACHINES. The Defense Information Systems Agency does not fare especially well in the General Accounting Office's recent report on multipleaward contracts. Through fiscal 1997, according to GAO, DISA received only one bid for about 44 percent of the task orders placed against its vehicles
Digital Government
FEMA upgrades disaster-assistance system
Following the deluge of calls after Hurricane Georges ripped through Puerto Rico and across the Gulf Coast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier this month upgraded a system that helps reduce the time it takes for disaster victims to apply for and receive federal financial assistance. In
Digital Government
Set-Asides
GAO: Results mixed on taskorder competition While procurement reform endorsed multipleaward contracts as a way to foster competition among vendors, agencies vary in their efforts to promote competition on subsequent task orders, according to a General Accounting Office report released last week.
Digital Government
Exec abandoned by Interior's new SES RIF rule
William Schmidt, a Senior Executive Service (SES) member and an employee of the Interior Department, discovered that his agency did not care enough to protect him when the position he occupied was abolished. Schmidt was chief of environmental technology at Interior's Bureau of Mines for about six y
Digital Government
Fedwire
GSA amends MAA pacts The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service last week amended its strategy for acquiring local phone service to allow for multiple awards. GSA made the change in response to a ruling last month by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that GSA's previous strateg
Digital Government
CSC to train DOD gumshoes
The Air Force's Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) this month awarded Computer Sciences Corp. a $2.75 million contract to train Defense Department criminal and counterintelligence investigators in the methods of information technology forensics and crime scene investigation. Under the Defense
Digital Government
Tektronix refreshes color printers, reduces pricing
Tektronix Inc. last week revamped its entire color printer line, unveiling four laser and solidink printers that cost as much as 50 percent less than existing models. The announcement, the largest in Tektronix's history, was designed to dramatically lower the outofpocket cost for workgroups that
Digital Government
Super challenger
Supercomputing, once the domain of largescale systems specifically designed to crunch numbers for scientific applications, is becoming more mainstream. As an alternative to the highly specialized supercomputer system architectures, vendors such as Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) and IBM Corp. are deve
Digital Government
FMS requirements debate goes online
With critical decisions being made about the government's use of commercial financial management software (FMS), a government group this month has set up a site on the World Wide Web where agencies and vendors can find information and provide feedback. The Joint Financial Management Improvement Pro
Digital Government
Industry Watch
Five companies snag FDA support services contract The Food and Drug Administration last month awarded a network acquisition support and services contract valued at a total of $83 million to five firms. This indefinitedelivery, indefinitequantity contract requires support services for telecommunic
Digital Government
DNA database initiative raises privacy fears
The FBI last week unveiled a system that will let state and local criminal investigators share DNA information to solve crimes, but some observers fear that the information is open to abuse. The new system, called the National DNA Index System (NDIS), will tap into existing DNA databases maintained
Digital Government
Trouble-shooting from the field
In 1973, 18yearold Terry Shatzer charted a course that would take him on a 25year journey across every continent and to a rewarding military career in command, control and computers. Shatzer, now an Air Force master sergeant serving as communicationselectronics superintendent at the Air Combat
Digital Government
NetWare 5.0: Worth the upgrade
With last month's release of NetWare 5.0, Novell Inc. raised the bar in terms of functionality delivered out of the box. The popular network operating system offers faster performance, several new and useful Internet features, and enhanced administration tools that together put it a notch above the
Digital Government
AT&T, GSA fight over millions
Officials from AT&T Government Markets and the General Services Administration believe each owes the other millions of dollars as a result of contract disputes arising from changes in service during the last price and service recompetition of the FTS 2000 contract. Sources close to the negotiations
Digital Government
Treasury BPAs bridge contract gap
The Treasury Department this month awarded four blanket purchase agreements potentially worth a total of about $125 million for software and major namebrand desktop computers, laser printers, notebooks and servers. ComTeq, Government Technology Services Inc. and Presidio Corp. each won BPAs worth
Digital Government
NIMA digital chart to set sail with Navy
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency is preparing a database that could replace the paper charts sailors use to navigate, although some seamen have concerns about the accuracy of NIMA's new digital chart. NIMA officials hope to make the Digital Nautical Chart (DNC) available to about 600 Navy ve
Digital Government
House may weaken bill to give USDA CIO new authority
The House may curtail some of the unprecedented budget authority over departmental information technology spending that a Senate bill would give the Agriculture Department's chief information officer. The USDA IT Reform and Year 2000 Compliance Act of 1998 would give USDA CIO Anne Thomson Reed cont
Digital Government
FY '99 IT budgets set in White House/Hill deal
Congressional leaders and the White House agreed late last week on a budget deal that will provide funding for major information technology initiatives. The budget deal has been delayed for weeks as Congress wrestled over issues such as whether to use statistical sampling for the 2000 census and ho
Digital Government