Digital Government
Fund honors dean's legacy
The Information Resources Management College has established the John M. Carabello Prize for Excellence in Information Resources Management Education in memory of the college's founding dean, who died Jan. 31 at age 56. Jerome Smith, Carabello's successor as dean of the IRM College, said the prize
Digital Government
Intercepts
* No deLight at NSA. My Fort Meade antenna site has picked up strong signals that the Hill has taken an interest in the followon to the National Security Agency's Light Core contract that was awarded last year to Cisco Systems at a bluelightspecial price of $34 million and then shelved followin
Digital Government
Outsourcing CIO post poses questions
The Army Reserve went outside its own agency way outside to find a suitable candidate for its chief information officer post. In a unique twist in the government's ongoing struggle to fill its CIO positions, the Reserve outsourced its CIO function to Unisys Corp., tapping Dennis Kelly, former I
Digital Government
Spectrum battles mire Defense in budget & safety straits (Part 1 of 2)
If Defense Department cost estimates hold true, about half of the revenue Congress expects to obtain through the latest round of auctions of the radio spectrum now used by federal agencies will be lost because DOD will spend the funds to reallocate its systems to other areas of the spectrum. The Co
Digital Government
Bill would guarantee funding for Next Generation Internet
After Congress balked last year at fully funding President Clinton's $105 million request for the highpowered Next Generation Internet (NGI) program, a Senate bill that was introduced this month would guarantee for the next two fiscal years almost the full amount the administration had been seekin
Digital Government
Warfare center views Y2K fix as chance to upgrade system
Faced with fixing the Year 2000 software glitch in its financial management and related administrative programs, one Navy organization is turning what many agencies see as an onerous task into an opportunity to upgrade and modernize its computer systems. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (
Digital Government
Council chair to be 'facilitator'
When John Koskinen takes over as chairman of the President's Year 2000 Conversion Council next month, he plans to coordinate Year 2000 work among agencies and to work with the private sector to ensure Year 2000 fixes are compatible with federal systems. Koskinen, whom President Clinton this month a
Digital Government
Dell taps Wang as fed service provider
Wang Laboratories Inc. will become a preferred service provider for all Dell Computer Corp. products used by federal agencies, under an agreement reached by the two companies last week. About 700 Wang technicians and support employees from the MultiVendor Services group, all of whom have security
Digital Government
CA launches unsolicited $9 billion bid for CSC
Looking to extend its capacity for 'endtoend' systems management, software vendor Computer Associates International Inc. last week made an unsolicited $9 billion offer to buy systems integrator Computer Sciences Corp.
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
The dangers of email While Congress has been busily debating a variety of technologyrelated legislation since its return from holiday break, Rep. James Traficant (DOhio) this month brought up a new concern about the possible dangers of the Internet: conceiving via email. Traficant called for a
Digital Government
GAO sides with Raytheon in Volpe protest
Computer Sciences Corp. late last week asked the General Accounting Office to reconsider its decision to uphold a protest against a $171.4 million Transportation Department support services contract awarded to CSC. In a Feb. 2 decision, GAO directed the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
Digital Government
INS to deploy fingerprint scanners in fight against citizenship fraud
The Immigration and Naturalization Service last week unveiled a plan to use technology to reduce rampant errors in the naturalization process, some of which have led to the granting of citizenship to criminals. The INS' naturalization process now is based largely on paper transactions, which has re
Digital Government
What constitutes insider trading?
Available at www.fcw.com A reader raised the following topic: Many government contractors are publicly traded corporations. Sometimes, rumors of impending contract awards to these companies circulate. What are the limitations on using this information in private investment decisions? What constitut
Digital Government
Netscape allays acquisition rumors
The chief executive officer of Netscape Communications Corp. last week dismissed rumors whirling on Wall Street that the company soon may be acquired by a larger technology company. 'We're not out looking for anything,' said Jim Barksdale, Netscape's president and CEO, in an interview with Federal
Digital Government
Energy, IBM sign $85M pact for world's fastest computer
The Energy Department signed an $85 million contract with IBM Corp. Feb. 12 to build the fastest computer in the world within the next two years. The pact, under which IBM will produce a supercomputer capable of performing 10 trillion operations per second (10 teraflops), is the newest piece in DOE
Digital Government
Y2K costs could sap Clinton's technology budget requests
Major information technology initiatives in President Clinton's fiscal 1999 budget proposal, which was released this month, may be trimmed back by Capitol Hill appropriators as Congress focuses dollars on a the Year 2000 problem.
Digital Government
Pendulum metaphor need not dictate our destinies
One of the nice features of returning to academia is the opportunity to read significantly more books than I was allowed to while in government. Recently I read a book that is moderately renowned in academic circles, and that I, in fact, had on my bookshelf before going to Washington but had never
Digital Government
Navy, AF outsourcing to save billions
The Navy and the Air Force hope to save about $2.5 billion each in their fiscal 1999 budgets by outsourcing or privatizing selected tasks, including information technology functions, according to internal documents. In a Jan. 15 Navywide message from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay Johnson, the
Digital Government
Spectrum battles mire Defense in budget & safety straits (Part 2 of 2)
Defense Department officials have confirmed that last fall the United States came perilously close to losing its hold on a portion of the radio spectrum used for Global Positioning System transmissions.
Digital Government