Digital Government
NTIS/Bernan deal opens publishing options for feds
The arrival last September of Big Emerging Markets, the first of what is expected to be a series of economic reports published by the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, may have marked the opening of a new chapter in federal publishing history. Markets is not so unusual in it
Digital Government
Hughes, Sun launch Air Force buy
Hughes Data Systems and Sun Microsystems Inc. have kicked off aggressive sales campaigns for their Air Force Workstations (AFWS) contracts, each vowing to offer buyers in the tactical, scientific and engineering communities price/performance packages unavailable on other government highperformance
Digital Government
AT&T adds ATM and Internet services
ORLANDO, Fla. AT&T and the General Services Administration announced several modifications to the company's portion of the FTS 2000 contract, including the addition of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Internet connectivity services. Sandy Bates, assistant commissioner for service delivery at
Digital Government
FGIPC, IAC groups maneuver for new leadership, policies
In the aftermath of the public squabble between the leadership of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils (FGIPC) and the Industry Advisory Council (IAC), factions within both organizations are pushing for change. Six of the 10 members of the FGIPC board of directors last week
Digital Government
South Korea listing boosts supplies
Federal PC buyers can expect lower prices and better supplies for some key components, such as monitors, because of the recent addition of the Republic of South Korea to the list of approved countries under the Trade Agreements Act. Also, effective at the beginning of 1996, Singapore and Hong Kong
Digital Government
FAA to sole-source WAAS to Hughes
The Federal Aviation Administration hopes to avoid major delays in the development of its Global Positioning Systembased navigation program by negotiating a contract on a solesource basis with Hughes Aircraft Co., just days after ending the original deal with Wilcox Electric. Hughes, a subcontrac
Digital Government
ROSTER
Bruce McConnell, chief of the Information Technology and Policy Branch of the Office of Management and Budget, has been named the new cochairman of the Interagency Working Group on Cryptography Policy. McConnell replaces Mike Nelson, special assistant for information technology policy at the Offic
Digital Government
More firms offer SPI training and services
SALT LAKE CITY The federal government's focus on improving software development and acquisition has spawned a cottage industry of vendors large and small that offer software process improvement (SPI) training and services to agencies and their contractors. At least a dozen such vendors were pres
Digital Government
Nichols Research captures $159M DOD modernization pact
Batting two for two, Nichols Research Corp. last week won an eightyear, $159 million contract to establish and maintain a Defense Department highperformance computing center at the Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC), WrightPatterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Nichols had captured a contract of similar
Digital Government
Lack of funds endangers IWS/LAN
The $1.1 billion Intelligent Workstation/LocalArea Network program, the core of the Social Security Administration's modernization effort, is in danger of serious delay if Congress does not provide the requested $300 million funding for fiscal 1997, agency officials warned last week. After testify
Digital Government
Cutting the IRS budget: Starving the watchdog?
A recent report issued by the General Accounting Office details pennywise, poundfoolish budget cuts made by Congress in the 1996 Internal Revenue Service budget. According to GAO, the IRS 1996 appropriation was $7.3 billion, $860 million less than what President Clinton had requested and $16 mill
Digital Government
OMB releases guidelines for performance-based contracts
Eighteen months after they began experimenting with performancebased service contracts, federal agencies are finding that this procurement strategy saves time and money and has improved contractor performance, according to a new "best practices" guide distributed by the Office of Management and
Digital Government
PCs, software will be first GSA MAS wares
Computer software and accessories, PCs, Macs and workstations will be among the first multipleaward schedule (MAS) items that federal customers can buy from GSA Advantage, an Internetaccessible ordering and purchasing site. By October of next year, the General Services Administration hopes to mak
Digital Government
DOD rethinks closing AJPO
The Defense Department is reconsidering plans to close the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) in June 1997 because of concerns about public perception of the department's Ada policy. Some people within the department fear that "at a time when the DOD has expressed renewed interest [in Ada], to close
Digital Government
FEDERAL BYTES
The Speaker in Cyberspace Marshalling the troops in the Republican revolution has apparently kept Newt Gingrich and his staff so busy that the technophilic speaker of the House has not yet had the chance to mount a home page on the House's vaunted World Wide Web site. An aide said one is in the wor
Digital Government
FEDWIRE
DOD bill would cut acquisition jobs The House National Security Committee approved a $267.3 billion authorization bill for the Defense Department that would eliminate 15,000 procurement jobs by October 1997 in addition to the 15,000 that are slated to be cut this year. According to a summary of the
Digital Government
Survey ships sail into history
The Navy has started to deploy the most computerized oceanographic survey ships in its history, with the Navy standard Tactical Advanced Computer4 (TAC4) contract providing most of the computing muscle for this new class of TAGS 60 ships. Not only do the central computers in the TAGS 60 class h
Digital Government
Digital, Unisys' X.500 wares support DMS
Digital Equipment Corp. and Unisys Corp. last week introduced new X.500 directory services products that support Defense Message System (DMS) requirements. Directories store user information such as electronicmail addresses and fax and telephone numbers. Directories based on X.500, the standard th
Digital Government
Panel charts post-FIRMR course
An interagency committee of information technology and procurement officials recommended that the government replace most directives of the Federal Information Resources Management Regulation (FIRMR) with general management and acquisition guidelines as it begins to put into place provisions of the
Digital Government