Digital Government
Connecting the dots
The National Cancer Institute soon will launch a project that uses digital mapping technology available on the market today to develop applications with an unprecedented capability to help researchers find links between cancer and environmental and social factors. The pact, to be awarded as early a
Digital Government
Army major, FTC team win annual IRMCO awards
The General Services Administration and the Chief Information Officers Council last week presented the annual IRMCO award to an Army major responsible for developing a Defense Department network management system and to a team of developers who worked on a Federal Trade Commission system to help ba
Digital Government
Study shows power of industry/fed union
The Defense Systems Management College at Fort Belvoir, Va., recently published a case study called 'Implementing Acquisition Reform: A Case Study on Joint Direct Attack Munitions.' Joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) is a kit consisting of global positioning satellite equipment and computers, whi
Digital Government
AF looks to IT to help field 'agile' forces
MONTGOMERY, Ala. Information technology will play a major role in a new Air Force initiative to improve the ability to respond to crises around the globe, according to Gen. George T. Babbit, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command, who kicked off the 12th Annual Air Force Information Technolo
Digital Government
IRS on the front lines
The Internal Revenue Service has been given its marching orders become more taxpayerfriendly or else and do so while treating all taxpayers fairly, zealously guarding taxpayers' privacy and, of course, collecting what is due the government. It is a pretty tall order, but the IRS, boosted by re
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
AND NOW A WORD FROM THE IRS. The first signs of the kinder, gentler Internal Revenue Service are beginning to show. At the CIO Council's Interagency Resources Management Conference last week in Virginia Beach, Va., IRS officials were on the stump, showing off the new look. The IRS' EFile program h
Digital Government
Navy issues BPA for Microsoft enterprise pact
The Navy late last month awarded an estimated $166 million enterprise license contract for Microsoft Corp.'s standard desktop software.
Digital Government
Intercepts
MONTGOMERY, ALA. SILICON SOUTH? The Standard Systems Group, headquartered here, managed once again to turn this sleepy southern capital into a hightech Mecca during the annual Air Force Information Technology Conference, luring both Michael Dell of Dell Computer Corp. and Scott McNealy from Sun
Digital Government
NPR fashions info gateway
Within 30 days, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) plans to launch a single massive gateway for the public to search all of the federal government's World Wide Web sites to pinpoint information on government resources and services.
Digital Government
Unisys delivers servers, storage to DISA centers
Unisys Corp. announced last week that its Federal Systems unit had won $165 million worth of contracts from the Defense Information Systems Agency to deliver mainframes and storage systems to the agency's consolidated megacenters. DISA placed the orders for 24 Unisys ClearPath enterprise servers an
Digital Government
New PCs meld power and price (Part 1)
Intel Corp.'s release of the 450 MHz Pentium II processor has unleashed a torrent of new desktop PCs and workstations. And now Compaq Computer Corp. enters the fray with the Sept. 8 release of the EN6450X. Intel's 450 MHz Pentium II processor features 512K of onboard Level 2 (L2) cache, which run
Digital Government
OPM to expand definition of IT positions
The Office of Personnel Management plans to consolidate occupational titles and further define information technology positions. Marilyn Gowing, director of personnel resources and the development center at OPM, briefed the Chief Information Officers Council in July on an initiative to create unive
Digital Government
New 8(a) standards not a welcome change
Although women welcome the recent changes to the Small Business Administration 8(a) Business Development Program regulations, newly admitted 8(a) companies will find the market for federal information technology contracts eroding. In response to President Clinton's initiative to reform government c
Digital Government
Pay raise not enough for feds
In a recent column, I reported that Rep. Steny Hoyer (DMd.) had successfully amended the 1999 Treasury, Postal Service Appropriations Bill with the text of his legislation, the Federal Employees Pay Fairness Act (H.R. 3251). The language would have would maintained the Clinton administration's ori
Digital Government
White House: Y2K needs $3B+
Armed with a recent report showing that costs for fixing the Year 2000 computer problem continue to increase, the Clinton administration last week sent Congress a request for $3.25 billion in emergency funding for agencies to fix their computers before the millennium. In his request for more Year 2
Digital Government
SBA program to funnel contracts to smallest businesses
The Small Business Administration announced last week a new pilot program that will make it easier for businesses that have 15 or fewer employees to win federal contracts by giving the businesses the first chance to bid on some procurements. SBA designed its Very Small Business SetAside Pilot Prog
Digital Government
Interagency panel reviews recordkeeping policy
An interagency committee working on a new policy for preserving federal electronic records plans to suggest ways that agencies can set priorities for cataloging their digital files. The decision, reached at a meeting of the Electronic Records Work Group last month, is in response to comments from g
Digital Government
Bay unveils wireless products
Following its recent acquisition of NetWave Technologies Inc., Bay Networks Inc. late last month introduced a line of wireless data products that gives the company an entree to new federal customers. The new Bay products are sophisticated radio transmitters called access points and cards that pl
Digital Government
USPS names chief tech officer to build 'info platform'
William Henderson, postmaster general at the U.S. Postal Service, announced last week the appointment of Norm Lorentz as the agency's first chief technology officer, who is tasked with carrying out the agency's new vision of an integrated 'information platform.' Lorentz, who has been with USPS sinc
Digital Government