Digital Government
Buying tips for Year 2000 tools
The impending challenge facing managers to get their code and embedded software ready for the Year 2000 has prompted industry to create thousands of tools to help find and automate the fixes. But for anxious buyers, the dizzying choice of tools often adds to the confusion. Whether you are shopping
Digital Government
Survey: Feds undecided about seat management
Few federal informationtechnology managers say they plan to use two recently awarded, highprofile desktop outsourcing contracts, according to a survey released last week. About 15 percent of federal managers said they planned to use desktop outsourcing contracts specifically the General Service
Digital Government
FTS to form services centers
Officials at the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service will restructure the organization this fall in response to their concerns about the proliferation of contracts in the agency's 11 regional offices, many of which duplicate each other. FTS Deputy Commissioner Sandy Bates s
Digital Government
Business Objects tailors tools for extranets
Business Objects SA last week announced a new version of its World Wide Webbased decisionsupport system (DSS) software that includes features intended to make it easier for organizations to extend their tools from an intranet to an extranet. DSS, or 'business intelligence,' tools are designed to
Digital Government
SBA works on Y2K internally, with small biz
Although the Small Business Administration is making strides in fixing its own internal year 2000 problem, the 23 million small businesses the agency serves are much farther behind, according to witnesses who testified at a congressional hearing last week. As of May, SBA has renovated, validated an
Digital Government
Vendors follow DOD records standard
As vendors scramble to develop products that fulfill federal electronic recordkeeping needs, they are coalescing around a set of standards issued last November by the Defense Department. Known formally as 'DOD Standard 5015.2: Design Criteria Standard for Records Management Application Functional B
Digital Government
GAO: GSA's oversight of advisory panels OK
A senior General Accounting Office official told Congress last week that the process for supervising federal advisory committees, which issue policy guidance on everything from health care to information technology, is mostly effective, but he added that some obstacles block capable management of t
Digital Government
HHS identifier puts privacy at risk
One of the most valuable benefits computers offer the government is the ease and speed of collecting and storing vast amounts of data. That ability allows policymakers to quickly analyze information to create and run federal programs. But that ability is a doubleedged sword because when the data
Digital Government
Microsoft nabs $116M VA software pact
Microsoft Corp. this month began supplying the Department of Veterans Affairs with a suite of software products that the agency will use to store and move electronic patient records throughout its sprawling medical organization and to other federal agencies and private medical facilities. Under a
Digital Government
Hill to debate GPO overhaul
In a move to ensure public access to government documents, the Senate Rules Committee next week will consider legislation that dramatically overhauls the Government Printing Office and extends its traditional authority over printing to electronically produced and disseminated government publication
Digital Government
FAA expands telecom network contract
The Federal Aviation Administration last month restructured and increased the value of its fouryearold data networking contract because of a greater demand for network management services. The Agency Data Telecommunications Network 2000 (ADTN 2000) contract was awarded in 1994 for about $18 milli
Digital Government
VA says it will meet Y2K deadline
Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs last week said they will get all computers for the Year 2000 problem fixed, but the reliability of commercial products will ultimately determine their success. The VA has written much of the computer code in the systems it uses to manage information o
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
Committee chairmen. How engaged is Capitol Hill in the recent round of seat management contracts? Not very, according to former Hill staffer Paul Brubaker, one of the architects of procurement reform legislation. Brubaker now works at Litton/PRC Inc., one of the companies awarded a Seat Management
Digital Government
Lockheed Martin tests multimedia conferencing
Lockheed Martin Corp. has been testing the latest version of a Lucent Technologies Inc. multimedia conferencing solution that allows engineers working on the Defense Department's Joint Strike Fighter to videoconference at their desks while simultaneously collaborating on software code and documents
Digital Government
DOD preps office for cyberdefense
The Defense Department plans to create a new military organization to spearhead DOD's effort to protect the nation's critical computer systems against information warfare attacks, marking the first time DOD has taken responsibility for protecting infrastructure within the United States. Under the p
Digital Government
Fedwire
DOD delivers DMS 2.0 The Defense Department last week expected to begin delivering a new version of the Defense Message System software to eight beta sites, according to DMS program manager Jerry Bennis. Speaking last week at the EGov 98 conference in Washington, D.C., Bennis said DMS Version 2.0
Digital Government
Smith Corona pitches PC wares to fed market
Smith Corona Corp., a company that has supplied everything from armaments to fax machines to the government in its 112year history, has retooled once again and is entering the competitive PC manufacturing business, hoping its brand name and experience will combine in a successful venture of sellin
Digital Government
Public-key committee to meet with CIOs
The Federal Public Key Infrastructure Steering Committee has approved its action plan to develop an interoperable publickey infrastructure (PKI) for governmentwide use. Members of the committee, which is composed of representatives from all federal agencies either using or considering the use of p
Digital Government
Magazine of the Year
I want to take a moment out from the usual business aired here to blow our own horn a bit.
Digital Government