Digital Government

Rand joins Lucent

The Defense Department today announced a series of nominations to fill some of its top information technology management slots.

Digital Government

GSA mulls Advantage changes

The General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service has met with industry associations over the past month to discuss plans to decentralize the agency's GSA Advantage electronic commerce system and allow vendors to maintain their own sales databases for products and services on multipleaw

Digital Government

DISA OKs participation in GSA telecommunications solicitation

The Defense Department gave the General Services Administration the green light to list all of DOD's Washington, D.C., area locations as potential users of the Washington Interagency Telecommunications Service 2001 in the draft solicitation for the network issued late last week. Although the extent

Digital Government

Feds say vendors are stonewalling requests for compliance info

Federal agency efforts to obtain information from telecommunications vendors on whether equipment is Year 2000compliant have been hindered by the reluctance of industry to share information, sources at a federal government conference said last week. Bill Nichols, the Year 2000 telecommunications p

Digital Government

Senate panel eyes extra Y2K funding

The chairman of a newly formed Senate committee on Year 2000 last week disputed the Clinton administration's estimates of the cost of fixing the problem and said the committee will consider 'significant appropriations' for agencies struggling to fix computers by 1999, despite longstanding White Ho

Digital Government

Senator says agencies could get 'significant appropriations' for Y2K

The chairman of a newly formed Senate committee looking into the Year 2000 problem said today that the committee will consider significant appropriations for agencies struggling to fix computers by 1999.

Digital Government

GSA tailors tool suite for mobile work force

The General Services Administration plans to unveil this summer a new 'product line' of information technology equipment and services specifically designed for mobile government workers and telecommuters. The offering, dubbed Anywhere Office, includes a range of computing and communications equipme

Digital Government

GSA extends FTS 2000 phase-out to one year

The General Services Administration this month notified AT&T and Sprint of the government's intention to extend the period for phasing out the FTS 2000 contract from 180 days after the contract expires to 12 months. The FTS 2000 contract is slated to expire in December, no more than four months aft

Digital Government

Vendors display new ISDN-based products, distance-learning products

Philips Electronics announced its entry into the videoconferencing market earlier this month with a series of new products that will be available on the General Services Administration schedule. The company demonstrated the products at the TeleCon East 1998 conference in Washington, D.C. Other anno

Digital Government

Feds won't pay as AT&T probes outage

Federal agencies that lost frame relay service during AT&T's network outage last week will not pay for the service until the company isolates the problem and ensures it will not recur, a spokeswoman from AT&T Government Markets said. The spokeswoman confirmed that all the agencies that use AT&T's f

Digital Government

GSA awards 3 recovery-services pacts

The General Services Administration late last week awarded contracts to Comdisco Continuity Services, SunGuard Recovery Services Inc. and IBM Business Recovery Services for governmentwide disasterrecovery services to support mainframe, midrange and desktop systems. The three vendors will provide '

Digital Government

Retirement option would need IT

A CONGRESSIONAL PROPOSAL TO RESCUE THE SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM BY PERMITTING WORKERS TO INVEST PART OF THEIR PAYROLL TAXES IN PRIVATE RETIREMENT PLANS MAY SAVE THE BENEFITS PROGRAM, BUT IT WOULD REQUIRE THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION TO INVEST HEAVILY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS TO TRACK

Digital Government

DOD eyes buying, personnel reforms (Part 1)

Defense Secretary William Cohen this month notified Congress of actions the Defense Department would take to modernize its acquisition procedures, including proposals to make greater use of technology tools, such as electronic commerce and distance learning. The report also said Cohen would establi

Digital Government

DOD eyes buying, personnel reforms (Part 2)

The Defense Department has begun work on the next generation of procurement reform and is drafting a comprehensive set of new regulations and proposed legislation. The effort would equal the scope of previous major overhauls such as the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, and many in industry hav

Digital Government

SAIC joins growing roster of NATO suppliers

Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) this month announced it had joined a group of about 30 information technology vendors that have enlisted to provide products and services to all member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. SAIC officials described the NATO program, whi

Digital Government

Applicants sought for IT scholarships

The Federation of Government Information Processing Councils has begun its annual search for scholarship candidates to support continued education in the field of information technology. As in previous years, FGIPC will award $1,000 scholarships in three categories: public service employees working

Digital Government

GSA awards $222M support services pact

The General Services Administration last month awarded a $222 million contract to STG Inc. of Fairfax, Va., for information technology and communications support services. The services will be available mainly to agencies operating within GSA's midAtlantic region, which covers Delaware, Maryland,

Digital Government

Audit mess tied to schedule woes

While members of Congress and the General Accounting Office last week blamed inadequate information technology systems for agencies' inability to create accurate financial statements, federal financial officials complain they are unable to purchase quality financial management systems (FMS) through

Digital Government

Contract success sparks thoughts for MAIQ follow-on

A General Services Administration contract for governmentwide systems integration services has nearly reached its $840 million ceiling years ahead of schedule, and agency officials plan to meet later this month to discuss a followon contract. GSA awarded the multipleaward, indefinitequantity 960

Digital Government

McKeever fine-tunes AT&T org

ATLANTA About six months after accepting the post of president of AT&T Government Markets, Mary Jane McKeever said she has improved service to federal agencies by reducing the layers of her organization's reporting structure and by aligning the group as a whole more closely with AT&T headquarters