BREAKING NEWS

The seven-year, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract covers software
support agencywide, including application development, data administration, database
support and software engineering, SSA contracting officer Wayne McDonald said.

Most of the code for SSA’s administrative systems, such as payroll, travel and
training, is written by agency programmers, but it is difficult to keep the code
up-to-date, McDonald said.

“Lockheed Martin will be supporting us by handling the grunt work of writing and
rewriting software code for these programs,” he said.

The company will handle SSA’s delivery orders from an off-site facility five miles
from the agency’s Woodlawn headquarters outside Baltimore. “This frees up space
in our offices,” McDonald said.

The Army’s License Software Upgrades 1 blanket purchasing agreement with
Government Technology Services Inc. of Chantilly, Va., calls for all-electronic delivery
of Microsoft Corp. software products by subcontractor Beyond.com of Sunnyvale, Calif.

Under the five-year agreement, Beyond.com will deliver Microsoft BackOffice
client-access licenses and Microsoft Office and Windows NT upgrades via 50 download
servers. The company will install the servers at Army sites during the first year, said
Kendall Fargo, vice president of enterprise and government sales.

Beyond.com’s Enterprise Download Manager will track and correct any transmission
hiccups, Fargo said. The download servers will supply the most recent versions of the
Microsoft products covered by the contract, and Beyond.com will help manage the licenses
to “make certain the Army gets what it’s paying for,” he said.

Computer Associates International Inc. has won approval from the Defense Department for
its enterprise management software running under Microsoft Windows NT.

The Defense Information Systems Agency certified Computer Associates’ CA-Unicenter
TNG 2.1 on NT at Level 6 of the Defense Information Infrastructure’s Common Operating
Environment, out of a possible eight levels.

Computer Associates paid for its own DII COE testing as a show of faith in DISA’s
software integration program, said Michael Miller, CA senior vice president and general
manager of North American sales. Strict adherence to the DII COE architecture means that
organizations can add new functions such as enterprise management to their existing
networks without introducing conflicts.

Last week Computer Associates released its first neural networking agents for NT
platforms and applications. Dubbed neugents, the Simple Network Management Protocol agents
integrate with Unicenter TNG on NT platforms.

Contact Computer Associates at 516-342-5224.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has certified a government version
of the NetFortress virtual private network from Fortress Technologies Inc. of Tampa, Fla.,
under Federal Information Processing Standard 140-1.

FIPS 140-1 certification is required for encryption products that secure sensitive but
unclassified data. NetFortress GVPN, which NIST certified last month, is the second VPN
product approved under the agency’s Cryptographic Module Validation Program. The
SafeNet/LAN VPN Encryptor from Information Resource Engineering Inc. of Baltimore received
certification in November 1997.

The Navy this month established blanket purchasing agreements with three vendors for
systems research and advice services.

The service signed BPAs with GartnerGroup Inc. of Stamford, Conn., Giga Information
Group of Norwell, Mass., and International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. The Navy will
use the BPAs to enhance its tactical and strategic systems planning and to evaluate new
hardware and software.

All three BPAs provide unlimited access to telephone inquiry support and research via
the companies’ Web sites. The services are open to all Navy organizations.

For more information on the BPAs, visit the Navy Information Technology Umbrella
Program Web site at http://www.it-umbrella.navy.mil/it.
 

The Clinton administration has appointed Elliot Maxwell to replace Ira Magaziner as the
government’s electronic commerce czar.

Maxwell will be an adviser to Commerce Secretary William Daly. Most recently he was
deputy chief of plans and policies at the Federal Communications Commission, where he
headed an EC working group.

He also worked at the Commerce Department early in his career as director of
international technology policy.

Maxwell will oversee issues ranging from encryption to shifting control of the Domain
Name System from the government to a nonprofit corporation.

Magaziner last month announced he would leave his post this year [GCN, Nov. 23, Page
3]. As the primary author of the Clinton administration’s July 1997 Framework for
Global Electronic Commerce, he has preached restraint, urging the government not to
overregulate EC and the Internet.

An unsuccessful bidder has lodged an agency-level protest with the Army, challenging
the service’s Integrated Architecture Solutions 1 award to Telos Corp.

On Nov. 30, Vanstar Government Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., appealed to the Army
Materiel Command, said Helen Garamone, spokeswoman for the Army Communications-Electronics
Command Acquisition Center-Washington. Army officials expect to resolve the protest by
year’s end, she said.

Unless AMC overturns the IAS-1 award, the protest probably will not disrupt acquisition
plans because the service has extended the preceding contract, Small Multiuser Computer
II, held by Telos of Ashburn, Va., to Jan. 31 [GCN, Oct. 19, Page 6].

Telos received the highest scores in the management, risk and technical categories for
its $207 million IAS-1 bid, an industry source said.

Vanstar received an excellent score for management, an average score in the technical
category and a below-average score for risk, he said.

The FBI recently bought 29 firearms training simulation systems from Firearms Training
Systems Inc. The FBI previously bought 58 of the training systems through two orders.

FATS, as the simulation system is known, uses laser disc technology to project firearms
scenarios on-screen. Law enforcement officers shoot at the images with specially designed
guns that emit invisible laser beams. The system details an officer’s reaction time
and number of lethal hits.

Because the bureau is still negotiating with the Suwanee, Ga., vendor, it would not
release information on the value of the systems orders.

—Frank Tiboni, Bill Murray, Florence Olsen ,William Jackson, Gregory
Slabodkin, Christopher J. Dorobek,  and Merry Mayer.