Digital Government
Federal Bytes
FIRST INITIAL A CDROM by any other name The demise of the Federal Information Resources Management Regulation (FIRMR) presents a question that we know has been eating at the entire federal IT community: What will GSA now call its FIRMR/Federal Acquisition Regulation CDROM? Wonder no longer. The F
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20 teams tapped for services buy
The National Institutes of Health awarded fiveyear contracts to 20 teams of vendors last week in its experimental Chief Information Officer Solutions and Partners (CIOSP) program giving some 250 companies a shot at task orders that together are worth an estimated $100 million or more. The closely
Digital Government
MCI wins DISN bandwidth manager
After years of fighting for a place in the federal telecommunications market MCI last week won the Defense Department's continental United States switch and network management contract ending AT&T's decadesold hegemony over military longhaul services. One industry analyst called the MCI win "an
Digital Government
Beware the pitfalls of e-mail
Ah the wonders of electronic mail. We have all quickly grown so accustomed to using email in our daytoday business affairs that we wonder what we ever did before it came along. No longer must we play telephone tag to get an important message in front of another busy person. We can simply dash of
Digital Government
Web conference site facilitates info exchange
The General Services Administration's emerging Information Technology Applications Division has established a new electronic Web conference site to allow users to exchange information on smart card technology. The new site is the latest of about a dozen Web conference sites set up by GSA in recent
Digital Government
CIO review foreshadows widespread fed evaluations
In what could be a yardstick for the evaluation of new federal chief information officers the General Accounting Office has looked at the CIO experience within NASA and found it wanting. The authority bestowed on the space agency's CIO is not enough to bring about the level of improvements envision
Digital Government
Robbins-Gioia protests GCSS-AF award to Lockheed Martin
RobbinsGioia Inc. last week filed a protest with the General Accounting Office arguing that the Air Force used a flawed evaluation process when it awarded a $900 million modernization contract to Lockheed Martin Federal Systems in the middle of August. In its protest the Alexandria Va. company ass
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Vendor feedback sought for model draft guidelines
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is developing examples of provisions that agencies might include in statements of work for new performancebased service contracts and is seeking comments from vendors on two draft proposals concerning software development and information systems maintenance
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Intercepts
FIRST INITIAL * Sayonara WWMCCS. Look for DISA to finally turn off the World Wide Military Command and Control System within the next week with the Global Command and Control System taking over from the aging mainframebased command and control system said DISA director Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds speaking
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
Still a few bugs in the system The Air Force Standard Systems Group took governmentindustry relations to a whole new level during its recent Global Combat Support SystemAir Force (GCSSAF) procurement. As part of a larger initiative to streamline acquisition the Air Force mandated a purely electr
Digital Government
Mainframe readiness falls behind schedule
The majority of federal mainframe sites will be affected by the Year 2000 date problem and many of these sites have left little time to correct and test their systems according to a study released this month by International Data Corp. IDC reported that 83 percent of mainframe sites it surveyed cit
Digital Government
Feds get the picture on videoconferencing
After years of high prices questionable fidelity and confusion about standards videoconferencing seems ready to become a standard part of federal IT systems. Costs are falling for products from fullroom to desktop systems the return on that initial outlay seems to be growing and some standards are
Digital Government
How are agency disputes resolved?
A reader presented the following topic: Frequently different government agencies have radically different interpretations of the same law. Generally such interagency disagreements have little impact on private parties. However sometimes there may be a considerable impact. How are these sorts of dis
Digital Government
Business surges on GSA's integration program
Systems integrators last week said they are pleased with the business they have obtained so far from the General Services Administration Schedule B/C integration contracts. GSA has awarded integration contracts to 15 companies (see chart) to provide systems integration on the multipleaward schedul
Digital Government
DOD megacentergoes head-to-headwith private sector
The Defense Megacenter (DMC) in Oklahoma City is lining up with industry vendors to compete for any civilian data center operations that are outsourced beginning sometime next year. Under guidelines issued last year by the Office of Management and Budget Circular 9602 civilian agencies are req
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ROSTER
The Defense Department team of chief information officers is coming together. The Army plans to nominate Lt. Gen. Otto Guenther to be director of information systems for command control communications and computers (C4) while the Navy is putting forward Marvin Langston deputy assistant secretary fo
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Raytheon left standing after FAA down-select
The Federal Aviation Administration reportedly has eliminated all but one vendor Raytheon from the competitive range for its $200 million Integrated Terminal Weather System procurement.I TWS will allow air traffic controllers and airlines to better anticipate weather conditions in the airspace
Digital Government
For the record, archivist looks to the future
Consider historical research and the mind generates an image of people hunched over fragile yellowed documents piled high on library tables. But in the future historians investigating the American past are as likely to sit down in front of a computer monitor and click their way around CDROM discs
Digital Government
Novell bundle makes NetWare, Internet link
Novell Inc. in heated competition with Microsoft Corp. and Windows NT in the network market announced a product bundle last week that will give NetWare users a way to create and manage their own internal intranets and connect them to the Internet. IntranetWare builds on the distributed services in
Digital Government