Looking back, contract vendors can succeed if agencies do plan ahead
Changes in government contracting threaten to overturn established principles and conventional truths. Reinventing procurement compels vendors to rethink the process of getting and performing contracts. The evaluation of past performance, if vigorously implemented, will revolutionize the bid or no-bid decision. In the past, the motto was: "Bid for revenue; manage for profit."
VirusWall comes to the rescue
When Meat Grinder came to town, Tim Crosier was ready for the bout. Meat Grinder isn't the name of a professional wrestler. It's a highly infectious macro virus that does minor damage to systems after entering through mailed attachments to Microsoft Word documents. Meat Grinder started showing up at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Port Hueneme, Calif., in early 1997.
Postal Service pushes electronic data project for Internet commerce
Would you buy postage stamps over the Internet? It seems incongruous, but the Postal Service's Information-Based Indicia (IBI) program will test that scenario. One of the first commercial partners to produce and test a product for IBI is E-Stamp Corp. of Palo Alto, Calif. E-Stamp's system lets businesses replace a postage meter with a PC.
Micrografx Inc.'s Graphics Suite 2 sheds pretender image
Formerly the ABC Graphics Suite, it used to be considered lightweight. Now it has morphed into a contender alongside heavyweights such as Corel Corp.'s CorelDraw. And at less than $350, it's competitive. You'll find enough programs in Graphics Suite 2 to meet nearly all computer art requirements. FlowCharter 7.0 draws diagrams and flowcharts.
HUD's CIO leaves 'a first-rate IT shop'
After two years as the Housing and Urban Development Department's chief information officer, Steven M. Yohai has resigned and will leave office by the end of the month. "I have achieved some personal objectives here and feel like I am ready for new challenges," Yohai said. "I am really not leaving because of anything that has happened here."
PCs let crew of USS Yorktown run a tight ship
The Yorktown, part of the Atlantic Fleet's Naval Surface Force, has 30 dual 200-MHz Pentium Pros from Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala., that run the bridge and monitor damage control, engineering and maintenance. The ruggedized PCs run Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 in 256M of RAM and have 4G hard drives. They link to a fiber-optic Windows NT 4.0 LAN with an Intergraph Pentium Pro server.
Downloading makes the Web go around
Internet newcomers are usually astonished to discover they can get almost anything on the Net, much of it for free. They find it a challenge to efficiently locate just what they need. Many managers think the only free software on the Internet is shoddy or undesirable--for example, arcade-style games. But good applications, utilities and other tools abound on the World Wide Web in the form of freeware, shareware and full commercial releases.
For some, requesting information is not a tough act to follow
FOIA doesn't have to be synonymous with headache. From the perspective of most requesters, making a Freedom of Information Act request is a simple, three-step activity. First, they identify the agency that has the records. Second, they reasonably describe the records, asking for existing documents. Third, they send a letter that includes a phone number so the agency can contact them if necessary. That covers the basics.
Compaq hits hard line drive with Deskpro 6000 PCs
The compelling Deskpro 6000 line from Compaq Computer Corp. has some of the best-engineered, heavy-duty, enterprise-ready computers available to government buyers. Only sluggish hard drives mar what comes close to perfect performance. The GCN Lab examined two of these top-end desktop PCs: a 200-MHz Pentium MMX minitower and a 266-MHz Pentium II in a low-profile chassis. Both gave strong benchmark performance everywhere except in hard-drive file access.
DISA plans to close 10 of 16 data megacenters
Bowing to the recommendations of the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Information Systems Agency has come up with a plan to eliminate 10 Defense Department data processing megacenters. "It is a QDR direction that DISA got, and we are going to go back to the Defense Secretary with the plan to do so," said Anthony Valletta, acting assistant secretary of Defense for command, control, communications and intelligence.
GSA must meet IT challenges
Reinventing federal personnel and workplace management policies is the next major challenge for information technology managers, General Services Administration administrator David J. Barram recently predicted. "Electronic services are showing us new possibilities, and we have just begun to take advantage," Barram said. "We now live in a real-time world and our customers expect us to provide real-time service. It's up to us to stay on top of this wave of change."
Net.Medic charts network symptoms
It comes on one 1.44M floppy with a single executable file for Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation 4.0. It's the perfect tool for troubleshooting Internet and intranet access problems. Connecting via modem or network, Net.Medic shows traffic slowdown locations, points out errors that might contribute to poor access and tells you the best times to surf.
BEA bids adieu to trusty--sort of--mainframe
Lee Price, acting undersecretary of Commerce for economics and statistics pulled the plug on the dinosaur, a Honeywell 66/80 mainframe. It slowly fell quiet as the cooling fans spun down in various hardware components spaced throughout the cavernous computer room. A red trouble light began to blink as bureau technicians looked on.
Ricoh's CD-rewritable drive, the MF6200S, needs fine-tuning
That keeps practically every agency systems professional busy figuring out how to manage, distribute and archive the increasingly voluminous data. One method that won quick popularity is the compact disk. Given the hardware and recording media, anyone can publish a CD-ROM. You get an almost permanent archive, a distribution medium and secure storage, all wrapped into one.
Bring on the Beans
In this context, bean counter is a compliment--and it's just what FTS needs as it moves into the era of FTS 2001 and desktop seat management. By all accounts, Fischer, now GSA's chief financial officer, is a deliberate and thorough executive. The massive FTS 2001 telecommunications contracts, like the waning FTS 2000 program they will replace, will need a steady hand to guide them through evaluation of bids and final awards. Telecommunications vendors are a
States' old systems can't track welfare recipients
WILLIAMSBURG, Va.--States track more than half of all welfare cases nationwide using systems that date back to the 1970s, according to the Health and Human Services Department. Three states use systems first installed in 1972, said an HHS official who recently detailed the findings of a soon-to-be-released HHS report.
AF seeks procurement change
MONTGOMERY, Ala.--The goal of an 18-month procurement cycle continues to tantalize Defense Department brass. Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, commander of the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., said ESC will adopt the computer industry's 18-month buying cycle to develop its service-unique command and control systems. Kadish, who spoke at the annual Air Force Information Technology Conference, warned that the Air Force can no longer afford to operate under its current procurement practices
DISA will design DISN with ATM model suite
The Defense Information Systems Agency will use an early version of a network modeling suite it co-funded to help design one of the world's largest asynchronous transfer mode networks. DISA partnered with Make Systems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., to ensure that NetMaker XA 3.0 had functions for building ATM infrastructure into the modernized Defense Information Systems Network. A commercial release of NetMaker XA 3.0 is set for release by the end of the year.
Agencies want their apps off the shelf, survey reveals
After decades of catering to its own unique requirements, the federal government is newly eager to try commercial software, according to an exclusive GCN survey. Leading integrated business application vendors such as PeopleSoft Inc., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG are more than willing to oblige. Part of the heightened appeal of commercial software comes from improvements in the applications, which let users tailor functions through simple table changes rather than writing new C code.
Agencies need telecom savvy
HERSHEY, Pa.--Regardless of new laws and industry price wars, consumer savvy will be the key to agencies cashing in on telecommunications reform, one of the government's top telecommunications chiefs has predicted. "There's a $43 billion local telecommunications market that will lead to chaos or at least significant changes in competition and more complexity," said Margaret Binns, assistant commissioner of the General Services Administration's Federal Telecommunications Service for regional services.
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