Digital Government
IBM, NCR win $218M USPS pact
IBM Corp. and NCR Corp. last week snared a $218 million U.S. Postal Service contract for pointofservice equipment. The dualaward pact sets the stage for a showdown between the vendors' retail product lines for a potential $1 billion in USPS business. The award of the POS ONE contracts follows a
Digital Government
ROSTER
The Defense Information Systems Agency restructured its top management with Diann McCoy taking over as deputy director responsible for command control communications and intelligence programs (C4I) from William Curtis who will become deputy director for procurement and logistics. McCoy previously s
Digital Government
Time is slipping away on Year 2000 fix
For government officials coping with the Year 2000 software emergency the missing ingredient is time both in computer date fields and on policy calendars not enough time to launch procurements appropriate money agree on standards or get the word out. 'Usually in a computer project dollars are the
Digital Government
DOD memo seeks costs by Sept. 15
The Defense Department responding to a congressional mandate included in the DOD authorization bill has stepped up its efforts to identify the extent of its Year 2000 problem and the cost of a fix. In an Aug. 1 memo chief information officer Emmett Paige Jr. directed all DOD components and services
Digital Government
GSA prints final guide for X.500 directory
The General Services Administration's Center for Electronic Messaging Technologies (CEMT) has released final guidance for federal state and local agencies on what they need to do to create an X.500 government electronic directory that would provide access to each agency's key personnel and document
Digital Government
Orders begin to flow through ITOP pipeline
Business on the Transportation Department's Information Technology Omnibus Procurement (ITOP) is beginning to flow as the first task orders move through the $1.3 billion multipleaward contract. Awarded in May ITOP is a governmentwide IT services pact spread across 20 prime contracts. The sevenyea
Digital Government
Procurement reform: A grand experiment with good prospects
In attempting to radically change the institutions processes and cultures of the federal procurement world the government has embarked on what is probably the most ambitious reorganization experiment in history. Of course many previous and unsuccessful attempts have been made to 'fix this problem '
Digital Government
White House to unveil Web policy
The White House has drafted privacy and security guidelines for agencies maintaining World Wide Web sites that the Office of Management and Budget plans to circulate this fall.At that time OMB will also release guidelines detailing how the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and the Information Technolog
Digital Government
New Life for Old Machines
Representatives from the Office of the Vice President and various agencies joined parents teachers and students at Baltimore's Dunbar High School earlier this month to celebrate the transfer of nearly 400 excess federal computers to public schools and educational nonprofits. Six agencies the Army
Digital Government
Rules are major shift for agencies
New acquisition rules proposed this month by the Clinton administration mark a major shift in federal procurement policy from a focus on detailed work specifications to an emphasis on results. Five years in the making the proposed rules document a central tenet of acquisition reform: that agencies
Digital Government
What is the Trade Secrets Act?
This question was asked by a company official: What is the Trade Secrets Act? What is the relationship between the Trade Secrets Act and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)? The Trade Secrets Act is part of the U.S. Criminal Code. It prohibits government employees from releasing certain confident
Digital Government
FEDERAL BYTES
The new IRS? As if the Internal Revenue Service were not having enough trouble explaining to the politicos just what it wants to do with Tax Systems Modernization Bob Dole's vision of a more userfriendly tax agency might change the plan some more. Ending filing for millions of taxpayers as the Rep
Digital Government
SAIC taps Virtual Prototypes for PC-based tools
Science Applications International Corp. last week added another piece to its product suite for interactive visual simulation by signing an agreement with Virtual Prototypes Inc. to resell VPI's software for generating tactical scenarios for Defenserelated projects. Under the deal SAIC will bundle
Digital Government
Legislation would expand slow child-support effort
When President Clinton signs welfare reform legislation this month a controversial program to develop state computer systems for tracking deadbeat parents that is already years behind schedule will be expanded. Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act the Department
Digital Government
IT vendors pursue GIS standards; users to benefit
Some major information technology companies have begun to develop products that will push the geospatial processing industry toward the establishment of standards and make geographic information systems (GIS) less expensive and more accessible for government and public users. Oracle Corp. and GTE C
Digital Government
Booz-Allen nabs $65M TRUST contract
BoozAllen & Hamilton Inc. beat out five other bidders last week to take the Food and Drug Administration's Training Resources User Services and Technology (TRUST) contract. Under the sevenyear $65 million contract BoozAllen will provide a broad range of services including providing connectivity
Digital Government
Politics, pigeons and pygmy mammoths in San Diego
Ahhh technology. Thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web political conventions now have moved from smokefilled rooms to cyberspace. When the Republican National Convention (RNC) starts today in San Diego Internet users around the world can tap into a sophisticated Web site that for starters
Digital Government
GSA opposes employee's compensation bid
For the last five months the General Services Administration has been embroiled in a losing battle with a disgruntled employee who wants to be paid for devising a negotiating technique that he claims saved the government millions of dollars. The employee contract specialist Salvatore Ales contends
Digital Government
Raytheon wins last DOD supercomputer center bid
Raytheon ESystems last week won a $168.9 million contract to establish the Defense Department's fourth and final supercomputing facility under its HighPerformance Computing (HPC) Modernization Program. Under the eightyear contract Raytheon ESystems Dallas will provide uptodate supercomputing
Digital Government