Digital Government

Bill pumps funds to states to ease traffic

I n an effort to accelerate the use of technology on the nation's roadways the Clinton administration last week offered in its transportation reauthorization bill new incentives for state governments to deploy intelligent transportation systems. The Clinton administration is asking for nearly $1.3

Digital Government

Canvas targets feds with application-specific systems

Canvas Visual Communications a videoconferencing vendor once owned in part by British Telecom is taking aim at the federal market with a new federal office and a General Services Administration schedule awarded earlier this year. Canvas which opened its Federal Division in Herndon Va. plans to tack

Digital Government

Use of electronic food stamps rises, but USDA faces tough challenges

An increasing number of states are moving to electronically issued food stamps but the lack of interoperable systems among states is challenging the widespread use of the debitlike cards. Mary Ann Keeffe acting undersecretary for food nutrition and consumer services at the Agriculture Department t

Digital Government

Hughes upgrades PTO pact

Hughes Data Systems last week said its has upgraded its $172 million Patent and Trademark Office desktop contract to include 180 MHz Pentium Pro machines. The contract was awarded to Hughes last August but was delayed by two protests that recently were dismissed by the General Accounting Office. Ne

Digital Government

Cabletron, Bay Networks unveil new switches

Cabletron Systems Inc. and Bay Networks Inc. earlier this month introduced new switches with Cabletron unveiling workgroup and wiring closet Ethernet switches and Bay introducing a routing switch. Cabletron's SmartSwitch 6000 the company's new wiring closet switch supports up to 120 Ethernet ports

Digital Government

Senators eye USDA reforms

The Senate last week asked the Agriculture Department for assurances that its efforts to evaluate and control the agency's troubled informationtechnology investments are on track. Sen. Richard Lugar (RInd.) chairman of the Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry said at a hearing that he

Digital Government

Three agencies collaborate on contractor database

Three federal agencies are working on a plan that will save time and money for government contractors and agencies conducting electronic commerce by creating a single interface to a distributed database of contractor data. The Office of Management and Budget recently asked the Defense and Treasury

Digital Government

Virtual Data Center Services may melt FAA's ICEMAN

The Federal Aviation Administration may drop plans for a new outsourcing contract in favor of purchasing services through the General Services Administration's recently awarded Virtual Data Center Services program. The FAA's current outsourcing pact Computer Resources Nucleus (Corn) will expire in

Digital Government

Sterling unveils Web-ready software

Sterling Commerce Inc. introduced today a suite of software products that will allow agencies to conduct electronic commerce over the World Wide Web. Called GENTRAN Web Suite the product family consists of two products designed to work with the company's GENTRAN:Server which has been shipping for a

Digital Government

Vendors debut videoconferencing, ATM products

Switches videoconferencing gear and network administration tools were among the products announced earlier this month at the ComNet show in Washington D.C. In switching N.E.T. Inc. unveiled a new family of Asynchronous Transfer Mode products representing the company's first major venture into that

Digital Government

USPS taps Northrop Grumman

The U.S. Postal Service recently chose Northrop Grumman Corp. to build a system that will track thousands of service requests ordered off USPS' soontobeawarded network services contract. The Northrop Grumman contract is valued at about $520 000 and is the first under the company's master orderin

Digital Government

GigaLabs revs Gigabit Ethernet switch

GigaLabs Inc. announced today a backbone Gigabit Ethernet switch that the company says will enable government users to take advantage of their highend workstations. The GigaStar 3000 provides Gigabit Ethernet and input/output switching in the same device. The product offers up to eight fullduplex

Digital Government

USPS trims billion-dollar wireless plan, eyes COTS

The U.S. Postal Service is dramatically scaling back an ambitious nationwide wireless communications program that would have cost more than $1 billion in equipment and services and is instead tailoring its requirements to accommodate offtheshelf hardware. In an effort to enhance its mailtracking

Digital Government

DOD sinks the Clipper

The Defense Department plans to remove the government key escrow software from its Fortezza cards used on the Defense Message System a move that signals the death of the Clinton administration's controversial Clipper initiative and one that should encourage civilian use of the cryptographic cards.

Digital Government

Lockheed Martin, CSC win PTO pact

Lockheed Martin Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp. last week captured the largest IT contract ever awarded at the Patent and Trademark Office the $541 million System Development and Maintenance (SDM) program which will provide system development and maintenance support services for the agency's mi

Digital Government

Satellite director in proper orbit

Kathleen Kelly director of the Satellite Operations Control Center (SOCC) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wasn't in her job a week when she faced her first major challenge: a serious malfunction on one of the nation's weather satellites. Early last month a hardware failure on

Digital Government

Six firms win $214M USDA pact

The Agriculture Department last month awarded contracts worth a total of $214 million to six companies under a broad support services program open to all government agencies. The fiveyear indefinitedelivery indefinitequantity contracts for the Information Resource Management Support Services (IR

Digital Government

USPS to spend millions to improve mail sorting

The U.S. Postal Service plans to spend millions of dollars to upgrade machines that read handwritten addresses on envelopes to reduce the amount of human intervention in routing letters to appropriate post offices and save millions of dollars. USPS is improving the socalled Remote Computer Readers

Digital Government

EDS captures Postal Service support services contract

The U.S. Postal Service Friday awarded Electronic Data Systems Corp. a contract potentially worth $200 million over 11 years to provide support and network management services for the agency's infrastructure programs. Through the Distributed Systems Operational Support (DSOS) contract EDS will supp

Digital Government

Madge unveils multilayer switch

Madge Networks Inc. introduced today what the company said is the first multilayer switch that allows routing to be done entirely in hardware a feature that increases performance and reduces price.