Digital Government
Six firms win $214M USDA pact
The Agriculture Department last month awarded contracts worth a total of $214 million to six companies under a broad support services program open to all government agencies. The fiveyear indefinitedelivery indefinitequantity contracts for the Information Resource Management Support Services (IR
Digital Government
AT&T snares billion-dollar DISN pact
AT&T captured the premiere Defense Department network contract of the decade with a bid of $970 million over a nineyear period a figure far below earlier DOD estimates and roughly half the rate of competing bids. The Defense Information Systems Network Transmission ServicesContinental United Stat
Digital Government
DOD flags MCI/BT merger
The Pentagon last month expressed concern about serious threats to national security if the proposed $20 billion merger between MCI Communications Corp. and British Telecommunications is allowed to proceed. Defense Department officials did not say they are looking to block the merger. But in a care
Digital Government
Hill OKs changes to thrift plan
The Thrift Savings Investment Fund Act of 1996 (S. 1080) which passed just before Congress adjourned last year expanded the retirement investment options available to federal employees through the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The legislation added a small capitalization stock index investment fund an
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
Pretty bad privacy A contest that pitted hackers and security experts against each other in a race to crack the federal government's encryption standard? That's what RSA Data Security Inc. conducted in conjunction with its security conference in San Francisco last week. RSA offered more than $50 00
Digital Government
AWARDS
American Management Systems Inc. A $100 million award to provide engineering and technical consulting for the Surface Ship Maintenance Improvement Program Naval Sea Systems Command. Computer Based Systems Inc. A $6.3 million award for CIO facilities management and enduser support services. Patent
Digital Government
NIH to launch ECS follow-on
The National Institutes of Health plans this week to launch the recompete of its popular Electronic Computer Store contracts this time as a fiveyear program potentially worth several hundred million dollars. The current ECS program has far surpassed the $96.8 million in sales that NIH anticipated
Digital Government
Tools extend reach of management platforms
Administrators of federal networks responding to edicts for downsizing have found a helpful tool in a new generation of products that work in tandem with network management platforms to monitor systems and applications. Until recently federal network managers working from a central site had only li
Digital Government
Firewall vendors fight off hostile applets
SAN FRANCISCO Six of the world's largest firewall vendors some with significant presence in the federal market have partnered with a Santa Clara Calif.based security startup to incorporate technology that defends against hostile Java applets into their various products. CheckPoint Software Tech
Digital Government
Sleuths in cyberspace
In his inaugural address last month President Clinton touted the phenomenal development of the Internet which he described as the 'mystical province of physicists' only 10 years ago. Indeed the Clinton administration through its National Performance Review and other projects has used the Internet t
Digital Government
DISA's Edmonds plans to step down
Air Force Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds director of the Defense Information Systems Agency last month announced plans to retire though he did not set a date. Edmonds who became the second director of DISA on July 29 1994 said in an interview that he will leave the agency satisfied that he has met the major c
Digital Government
Going backward through revolving door
A private individual raised the following topic: I am employed by a federal government contractor. However I am thinking of resigning to take a position with one of the agencies with which my company contracts. Would this create problems for me or my company? Do I need to do anything to avoid poten
Digital Government
Intercepts
Latham rides again? My wideranging Beltway mobile unit keeps picking up signals that Don Latham has a good chance of returning as ASD/C3I with OMB's Bruce McConnell (an ardent ASD/C3I wannabe) slotted as Pentagon CIO and a DASD. To those out there in C3land who find this preposterous please reme
Digital Government
IRS, Oregon to test joint filing initiative
The Internal Revenue Service and the state of Oregon plan to test this year the joint filing of federal and state tax returns by asking businesses to use a single paper form that the state would scan to capture data electronically and then forward to the IRS. The project's main goal is to help smal
Digital Government
GAO recommends EC integration
A General Accounting Office report released earlier this month concluded that the mandated Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET) is used infrequently for procurements and recommends that an integrated strategy be developed for using other electronic commerce technologies in addition to FACN
Digital Government
Sun Microsystems debuts mainframe-class machine
Sun Microsystems Inc. this week will introduce what it calls a mainframeclass Unix server which the company will position as a platform for database consolidation and other applications that might otherwise reside in the data center. According to Sun executives the Ultra Enterprise 10000 codena
Digital Government
EPA buys monitoring software
In an uncommon move to secure its distributed networks agencywide the Environmental Protection Agency has purchased a software package to monitor and manage information security policy at more than 100 sites. The EPA plans to install Axent Technologies Inc.'s OmniGuard/Enterprise Security Manager (
Digital Government
Round Two
An article in the Jan. 6 issue of Federal Computer Week incorrectly reported that PRC Inc. had won a $46 million contract from the Defense Intelligence Agency. That contract was awarded by the Air Force's Rome Laboratory.
Digital Government
Shuttle site a space odyssey
NASA launched the space shuttle Atlantis along with a new shuttle World Wide Web site on Jan. 12 the birthdate of the mythical HAL computer in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001. While the Web site (shuttle.nasa.gov) does not sing "Daisy Daisy Give me your answer do... " it does have other bells and whistle
Digital Government