This week in FCW history

Five years ago: April 27, 1998

IT as vital to military as ships, tanks
Top Defense Department information officers believe that information technology and computerized weapons will determine winners and losers of future battles, making software as much a component of national defense as the newest ship, fighter or tank.

Four years ago: April 26, 1999

SPECIAL REPORT: Bridging the Gulf
The Persian Gulf was a testing ground for many new ideas. The biggest lesson learned was about bandwidth. Today's command and control systems require huge amounts of information and the pipes to move that information quickly. It is also about information management - finding the data when you need it.

Three years ago: May 1, 2000

Army enlists Tinseltown
The Army has pulled together a team of cinematography experts from Hollywood to help it harness the technology depicted in the hit movie "The Matrix" and TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" for use in its own next generation of training and simulation systems.

Two years ago: April 30, 2001

Delays to FTS 2001 cost taxpayers $74M
Taxpayers are paying an extra $74 million because 27 agencies failed to meet the Dec. 6, 2000, deadline for switching to the $1.5 billion FTS 2001 telecommunications contract, according to a senior General Services Administration official.

One year ago: April 29, 2002

Chinese cyberthreat increasing, experts say
U.S. intelligence officials say there is evidence that the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyberattacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, according to a classified CIA report.