Acquisition
E-Mall's Open: Will Shoppers Come?
Massachusetts' Much-Hyped Procurement Venture Has Hurdled the Pilot Phase. But it Remains to be Seen if E-Mall can Leap a Brand-New Set of Hurdles: Expenses, Doubts and Competition
Digital Government
Building an agency metadirectory
Computer networks in federal agencies initially were developed to support relatively small groups of users. Network directories, which keep track of users and devices plugged into the network, also were very focused.
Acquisition
E-catalog pilot raises doubts
The Government Catalog Interoperability Pilot, a key element in the federal government's push toward a World Wide Webbased open buying environment, has been judged a success by its participants, at least in showing the feasibility of the concept. Installing a fullscale version of the pilot, however, is another matter.
People
Satellite services broaden training choices
Broadband satellite services could take on an important role in government distancelearning programs, particularly as technologies such as desktop video communications become viable for training employees.
Digital Government
States Jump on the Web Portal Bandwagon
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled this week that states can be barred from selling private companies the personal information drivers supply to state motor vehicle departments.
Digital Government
Is Fibre Channel losing SAN dominance?
If you follow the conventional wisdom as you prepare to build your agency's new storagearea network (SAN), then Fibre Channel will be the technology you use to connect servers, network equipment and storage devices. But is Fibre Channel your only option? What about SCSI or Ethernet links two pro
Digital Government
The Y2K Silver Lining
Don't be surprised to see smiles on the faces of IT professionals when they talk about the Year 2000 computer datechange bug, even when you consider the possibility of a complete technological meltdown and all that it entails. They're not sadistic. More like opportunistic. Although they've spent m
Digital Government
A New Civic Center
Officials of Clackamas County, a largely rural area south of Portland, Ore., say they have found a solution to a problem that plagues many of its residents and eventually threatens to dampen the local economy.
Digital Government
Firms lead feds into Web video
Of all the types of data that will be part of the future Internet, video holds the most promise as an application medium but also poses the most problems. While video can be run over the Internet, there's no way to browse and search it in the same way as text. A company called Virage Inc., based in
Digital Government
Florida Pioneers EDI-based Purchase Card
Mostly a curiosity just a couple of years ago, the use of purchase cards appears to be an inexorable part of the future of procurement for state and local governments.
Digital Government
Treasury tests new contracting waters
The Treasury Department last week asked industry to help it develop guidance on how to award performancebased contracts that will enable vendors to offer more creative and innovative solutions that meet the department's information technology goals.
Digital Government
Speech recognition: The talk of the town
Speech recognition has had a tough decade. With such popular images as Star Trek's chatty computers to compete against, the realities of speech recognition long system training time, the need for discrete word input and high error rates have limited the market to early adopters. Although speech
Digital Government
Commercializing the Classroom
Despite billions of federal and private grant dollars spent to wire K12 classrooms and connect them to the Internet, few schools have the money for computers or the teaching tools to use on them. Indeed, on average, observers believe schools are finding it tough to drop below a ratio of 10 studen
Digital Government
Smart card market ready to explode
Depending on whom you ask, smart card technology is either on the verge of tremendous growth in the federal government or has yet to make a significant impression within most agencies. On the plus side, smart cards already have become a fixture at some military bases, for example, where they contro
Digital Government
Keeping an eye on directory services
As federal agencies' networks have grown larger and more complex, the need for tools to manage them has become urgent. A key development in network management has been the rise of enterpriselevel directory services, which have garnered much interest following Microsoft Corp.'s development of its n
Digital Government
CIO panel preps fed 'white pages'
The CIO Council is planning to build an online government 'white pages' directory, a firstofitskind service that would make it easy for government employees and the general public to find the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and locations of all federal workers. The directory also woul
Digital Government
Curbing Urban Sprawl
Many of the nation's cities are enjoying the fruits of the best economy in decades, with the indicators of civic healthtax receipts, economic investment levels and employment ratesall pointing up. Yet the good times have brought some negatives: an insatiable appetite on the part of consumers and
Digital Government
The ORB slowly rises
After years in the wings, an esoteric technology called the Common Object Request Broker Architecture is increasingly finding favor among government agencies as they move toward more distributed applications. CORBA is a form of middleware software that links separate applications that can be in
Digital Government
Eyeing Net Security
State and local government agencies may face a different kind of time bomb once the century date turns over. While they have been dealing with the Year 2000 crisis, many localities have not been able to keep pace with their network security needs, state and local officials said. The bad news is tha
Digital Government