Digital Government

DOD's Cohen, Microsoft's Gates talk national security

John Koskinen, the federal Year 2000 czar who uniformly downplays millennium doomsday scenarios, today gave a group of information technology vendors some insight into why he is more upbeat about the federal government's Year 2000 readiness than Congress, government watchdog groups and federal inspectors general.

Digital Government

Cohen to address Microsoft employees

As part of an ongoing effort to build a grassroots understanding of the military, Defense Secretary William Cohen today will address an audience of Microsoft Corp. employees, stressing the mutual benefits that stem from DOD's relationship with the company and with the information technology industry at large.

Digital Government

DOD, intell community study Web access

The Defense Department is planning a new round of World Wide Web site security reviews in light of continuing concerns that the large volume of information available to the public on the Internet poses a significant risk to DOD operations, a senior DOD official said today.

Digital Government

DOD sees little new funding to fight cyberterrorism

President Clinton's $1.4 billion proposal to protect critical information systems from cyberattacks will not fund as many new programs in the Defense Department as initially believed, a senior DOD official said today.

Digital Government

Centcom to hold high-tech disaster relief exercise

The Defense Department's Central Command, which oversees U.S. defense and security interests in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, plans to hold in May a major computerbased disaster relief effort in the Republic of Kazakhstan, one of five Southeast Asia countries recently added to the command's area of responsibility.

Digital Government

ITSP goes global

The Air Force has significantly broadened the potential customer base for its $750 million Information Technology Services Program (ITSP) by opening it up to military agencies in Europe, Canada and Japan, according to program documents released this week.

Digital Government

DOD to send Y2K team to Russia

The Defense Department this month will send a team to Russia to take part in the first official bilateral planning session on the Year 2000 computer problem, officials said last week.

Digital Government

DOD maintains stake in key IT programs

Marking its first increase in spending since the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department made a concerted effort in its fiscal 2000 budget proposal to strike a balance between immediate personnel and readiness concerns and the need for investment in future information technologies.

Digital Government

IBM upgrades SP server

IBM Corp. last week unleashed a more powerful version of its RS/6000 SP server system, which brings supercomputer power to bear on data mining, scientific modeling and simulation, and online transaction processing. The new RS/6000 SP is a faster version of the system that powered the IBMdesigned s

Digital Government

SGI fashions plan for Intel-based servers

Just two weeks after the inauguration of its first line of Windows NTbased workstations, Silicon Graphics Inc. last week laid out a broad new product strategy that calls for a new server line supporting Windows NT and Linux. Known for its dominance in the highend Unix workstation and server marke

Digital Government

CSC wins $21 million engineering pact

Computer Sciences Corp. will provide a wide range of software engineering and support services to six Defense Department logistics centers under a $21 million contract designed to sustain a DOD logistics control and distribution system, the company announced last week.

Digital Government

Oakland, Alameda welcome Marine high-tech exercise

Just one week after San Francisco rebuffed a Marine Corps proposal to hold a major exercise there, two other cities have agreed to host the Marines' Urban Warrior, which will test the use of information technology to support military operations in a city setting.

People

Air Force adds 15 more vendors to services program

The Air Force this week awarded blanket purchase agreements to 15 additional vendors under a $750 million information technology services program, bringing the total number of large and small businesses involved in the program to 81.

Digital Government

Air Force communications feels budget pinch

An Air Force initiative to upgrade its global communications capabilities had a low priority during the fiscal 2000 budget process, because of the need to focus on broader concerns about maintaining the service's readiness, an Air Force official said Friday.

Digital Government

DOD slashes funding for tech research

Because of ongoing and anticipated operations around the world, the Defense Department will scale back spending on information technology research in fiscal 2000, according to DOD's proposed budget, released today.

Digital Government

Marines budget bolsters new IT strategy

The Marine Corps plans to begin funding an initiative to field common computing equipment across the service as part of its fiscal 2000 budget, according to Navy documents released today.

Digital Government

SSG revamps IT acquisition

One of the Air Force's major procurement shops plans next week to begin a process of replacing its existing information technology products and services contracts with a series of blanket purchase agreements.

Digital Government

San Francisco says no to Marines' high-tech exercise

San Francisco this week slammed the door on a Marine Corps proposal to use neighboring national parklands as the site for an major military exercise designed to test cuttingedge information technologies in an urban environment.

Digital Government

Air Force lab develops tech to secure digital imagery

The Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, N.Y., has developed a cuttingedge technology solution that aims to boost Internet security by preventing the fraudulent manipulation of photographs, videos and other digital media used throughout government and industry. The technology, known as digital wat

Digital Government

Defense gets tough with acquisition training criteria

The Defense Department last month significantly raised the requirements for training and education for its acquisition work force, issuing a broad new policy framework for continuous learning and launching a reassessment of all acquisition training needs. Released by Jacques Gansler, undersecretary