NASA awards systems work to Raytheon
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded a $55 million contract to Raytheon Co. for systems integration work. The company began work under the five-year contract, which has two five-year options, late last year. Raytheon is helping JPL's Earth and Space Sciences Division implement and run science data systems, said Marty Scarbrough, a JPL contract negotiator.
GSA predicts smooth cutover to FTS 2001
The government's telecommunications chiefs are predicting a smooth transition from FTS 2000 services to new long-haul communications providers, despite delays by many agencies in setting plans for new comm services. "I'm very confident we'll get through this in good shape," Federal Technology Services commissioner Dennis J. Fischer said last month.
NIH lets agencies tap vendor performance system
The National Institutes of Health has created a database that agencies can use to help manage vendor past-performance evaluations. NIH's Contractor Performance System is one of the first government databases that lets agencies evaluate a vendor's performance on multiple contracts, agency officials said. "We're the only game in town that has been up and running," said Diane Frasier, director of NIH's Office of Contracts Management.
Drop the desktop model for handhelds, users say
PALM DESERT, Calif.—What users want in a handheld computer is toughness and ease of use, a Marine Corps officer said last month at the Mobile Insights '99 conference. It is time for users such as the Defense Department to stop retrofitting systems for the field, said Marine Maj. James C. Cummiskey, Camp Pendleton's mobile computing specialist. He spoke to an audience of mobile product users about an Army plan to buy 100,000 Nino 300 handheld devices.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTINGNEW PRODUCTS
Informix Dynamic Server, Linux Edition Suite, is available for a free, 30-day trial with technical support by e-mail from Informix Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif. Downloadable from the Informix Developers Network at http://www.informix.com/idn, the suite includes a complete database management system plus programming interfaces for client-server and intranet applications. It comes with guidelines for Apache Web server freeware, Java Database Connectivity and Open Database Connectivity.
E-commerce office will blend Defense's online catalogs to create a singlee-mall
The Defense Department's Joint Electronic Commerce Program Office is moving forward with plans to integrate all the department's electronic catalogs and create a single DOD-wide electronic mall. In the 1999 Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed JECPO to have the integrated system running by June. The Web system will connect disparate electronic catalog systems such as the Defense Logistics Agency's EMall and the Navy Electronic Commerce Online.
Feds turn Y2K corner
The pendulum has begun to swing back, if only slightly, on opinions as to whether the government's systems will be ready come 2000. The latest report from Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.), a report from the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem and General Accounting Office testimony about the Defense Department's efforts were relatively optimistic compared with earlier assessments.
Is it possible to build software free of defects?
CHANTILLY, Va.—Software quality experts are a demanding bunch. They see the nation's infrastructure being put at risk by poor software quality—and they are not even talking about year 2000 vulnerabilities. But even the experts at the International Software Assurance Certification Conference here last week could not reach a consensus on the root cause of poor quality.
SNEAKER.NET
Q. After reading your article on year 2000-readiness testing tools for PCs [GCN, Jan. 11, Page 1], I decided to try the free YMark2000 utility you mentioned from National Software Testing Laboratories Inc. I booted up a 133-MHz Pentium PC from now-defunct EPS Technologies Inc. in MS-DOS mode and ran YMark. It reported that the computer could not perform a real-time progression from 1999 to 2000.
DOD Computing Briefing Book
Mission success. Lockheed Martin Corp. has again secured its coveted place as the largest single recipient of Defense Department contracts, according to DOD statistics released last month. The Bethesda, Md., company last year received $12.3 billion worth of business from DOD, followed by Boeing Co. with $10.9 billion and Raytheon Corp. with $5.7 billion. Defense overall awarded $118.1 billion in contracts in fiscal 1998—$1.4 billion more than in fiscal 1997.
ODIN contract sets up services for space centers
OAO Corp. recently awarded a three-year, $55 million subcontract to IBM Corp. for the Greenbelt, Md., company's Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA contract. Under a $154.9 million task order that it received in October, OAO will run desktop PC, server and communications services for four NASA space centers [GCN, Nov. 9, 1998, Page 1].
GAO faults systems for IRS financial woes
The General Accounting Office has once again slammed the IRS for poor financial management. In an audit report issued last week, GAO said the tax agency exhibits pervasive weaknesses in the design and operation of systems management, particularly in record-keeping and computer security. The result of the deficiencies, the report said, is the IRS' inability to accurately report on tax revenue received, refunds disbursed and taxes receivable from the public.
There's still no guarantee of a fair hearing in a contract dispute
More than just creating obstacles and annoyances, the process can leave a party, often the contractor, without any remedy. A limited partnership called Bonneville Associates found itself in this position when its contract to renovate an office building in Las Vegas and sell it to the government went sour. Of the $10 million purchase price, about $2 million had been dedicated to repairs and alterations. The government found the repairs unsatisfactory and assessed $5 million in damages.
PC workstation Buyers Guide
Sit quietly and you can almost hear it—the growl of more and more powerful technical workstations. Many desktop PCs now give performances that back claims to workstation status. Technical workstations have come in two flavors: the conventional RISC desktop machine running Unix and the high-end PC with an Intel chip running Microsoft Windows NT. But the number of choices is expanding.
Tool unites Net reporting with phone call accounting
A new network accounting tool from Telemate Software Inc. of Atlanta integrates Internet usage reporting with telephone call accounting. "The federal government long ago bought into the fact that it has to control telephone use," marketing director Kent Jones said. Jones said Telemate's bread-and-butter business has been three generations of software to extract log data from agency private branch exchanges for usage reports and billing.
LAN project forces agency, vendor to meet in middle
Hardball negotiations between Social Security Administration and Unisys Corp. officials kept the Intelligent Workstation/LAN contract from careening off track during the last year. A year ago, "the contract was in a mess," said T.J. Miller, Unisys vice president and general manager of information technology solutions and federal systems.
In Beta 2, Office 2000 grows—again
Beta 2 of the mammoth Microsoft Office 2000 arrived on seven CD-ROMs. Not only has the code expanded, Microsoft Corp. has inserted the Web programming tool FrontPage, desktop publishing application Publisher and a new art tool, PhotoDraw. All the regulars are still present: the Microsoft Word word processor, Excel spreadsheet, Access database, PowerPoint presentation program and Outlook personal information manager.
The Pentium III's serial number puts a paranoid chip on Rat's shoulder
The cyberrodent has been puzzled for some time by Intel Corp.'s bizarre advertisements. First, they upgraded Homer Simpson's brain with a Pentium II processor. The tinkly Intel Inside sound bite followed by Simpson's "Doh!" conveyed a different message from the one intended by the Oregon illuminati. Now Intel is bombarding the world with dadaist ads for its Pentium III chip and trying to raise consumer awareness by provoking a boycott by cyberprivacy advocates. "It must be
FW2000 server does inside job for personnel vehicles
FieldWorks Inc. claims its FW2000 Series Embedded Vehicle System is tough enough to handle computing requirements inside personnel carriers and tanks. Officials of the Eden Prairie, Minn., company said the FW2000 server complies with the military standard 810E for shock, vibration, blowing rain, and windblown water and dust. It also has the National Electronics Manufacturers Association's 4X rating for corrosion, dust, ice, rain and water, according to FieldWorks.
Cabletron, Xylan add Gigabit Ethernet uplinks
Cabletron Systems Inc. and Xylan Corp. have added Gigabit Ethernet uplink capability to their SmartStack and OmniSwitch switch families. Cabletron gave the $3,995 SmartStack ELS100-24TXG high-density workgroup switch 24 Fast Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. The ELS100-24TXG does wire-speed switching and accommodates Web or Cabletron Spectrum management, RMON standards-based remote monitoring and port mirroring.
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