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.
Pioneer brings back gas plasma displays—this time for $22,000
Gas plasma displays, which seemed to have a bright future in mid-1980s monochrome portable computers, have made a comeback in color. The displays work by heating up a gas until it turns into charged particles, which excite a phosphorescent layer that displays vivid colors. Pioneer New Media Technologies Inc., of Long Beach Calif., is one of the few companies now shipping gas plasma color monitors. Most CRT and LCD vendors are months or years away from releasing
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | Beat the Clock
| Beat the Clock Countdown to 2000. Most agencies are now midway into the last phase of the largest and most complex information systems projects they have ever managed. The General Accounting Office has advised agencies that the final validation and implementation phase of year 2000 computing projects cannot be done adequately in less than a year. GAO predicted this will burn up more than half of every agency's year 2000 resources and budget.
Justice makes a motion to put court papers online
Consider this scenario: It's 4 p.m. and a lawyer with the Justice Department has to make sure a filing gets hand-delivered before the federal district court closes its doors for the day. Or, another lawyer wants to review all the documents concerning a case. He has got to get to the courthouse during open hours and request to see the court docket. And because there's only one copy, he has to hope no one else is
DefenseLink to get new face
The Defense Department is redesigning its central Web site, DefenseLink, to help better control the information DOD users place on the Internet. DOD officials expect to have the new site in place by April or May. The redesign will make it easier for Web surfers to find the department's 2,000 or so Web pages, department officials said.
USPS preps for use of software package to reach goal of 700 electronic forms
When the Postal Service begins using JetForm Corp. FormFlow in September, the goal is 700 electronic forms developed with the Ottawa company's software, said Clara Hankins, acting manager of Corporate Information Services in USPS' Forms Management Group. About 200 of the service's 1,700 forms already exist in electronic form through another software product USPS used until early this year. USPS software developers are now converting the most heavily used forms for personnel actions, procurement, travel and
BREAKING NEWS
Smith spearheaded the Federal Technology Service's desktop outsourcing contract for GSA, but she recently left her post to become chief operations officer for GSA's Anywhere Office project. She will report directly to GSA Administrator David J. Barram. The Anywhere Office is a component of the CyberGSA plan the agency unveiled last year. One element of CyberGSA is CyberWork, which will let employees work from any location [GCN, Oct. 19, 1998, Page 1]. GSA's Anywhere Office is
Report offers recipe for net protection
The security of networked information systems has become a hot topic. Since the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection issued a report on the subject in 1997, the FBI, the Commerce Department and other agencies have established new security offices. Given the importance of networks, attention to security is overdue.
Can directories keep NOSes in sync?
A still-immature network operating system, NT Server does not have a directory structure and cannot scale up to enterprise levels as well as other NOSes can. Nor has Microsoft Corp. developed good ways of making NT work with other NOSes. But the competition has. Novell Inc. has delivered a second version of Novell Directory Services for NT—essentially acting twice as an organ donor.
Users seek technical aid plan
When the hard drive of Jerry Tatum's notebook computer failed six months ago, he set out on a hunt for technical support. Tatum, a records manager at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., tried contacting the manufacturer, EPS Technologies Inc. of Omaha, Neb. His calls and e-mails went unanswered. Tatum finally called the Better Business Bureau of Omaha, which referred him to an EPS attorney who confirmed Tatum's suspicion: The company had ceased operations.
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