The procurement question of the day: Why not an auction?
Before reading this article, make sure that no one is looking over your shoulder. No expense has been spared in sending King Oxnard, procurement detective, on an impossible mission to uncover the latest in federal buying gossip. You are about to read some of the most sought-after information ever to be generated by the Office of Commercial Regulatory Action Policy, more commonly known as OCRAP. It's supposed to be a secret.
The bargains just keep getting better for federal buyers
Federal buyers, get ready for PC prices that won't stop their freefall when the fiscal year ends. The market is turning into a bargain blowout. You've heard about the fast drop in RAM prices and the arrival of 200-MHz Pentium PCs driving down cost of slower models. But brand-new suppliers are entering the market, too. Consider Nexar Technologies Inc. of Westborough, Mass., and CTX International Inc. of City of Industry, Calif.--a well-known supplier of business-grade
Post-FTS 2000 RFP won't be out until Nov.
It will be at least mid- to late November before the General Services Administration releases the solicitation for the Post-FTS 2000 procurement, the agency's top telecommunications executive has predicted. "We haven't settled exactly when it's all going to come out," Robert J. Woods, commissioner of GSA's Federal Telecommunications Service, told GCN last week. Woods said GSA is still talking with the Hill, the White House and others about the terms of the request for proposals,
DOD picks Pulsar for unclassified ATM net
Pulsar Data Systems is the unofficial winner of a contract to install a 10-node asynchronous transfer mode backbone that is supposed to speed traffic across the Defense Department's unclassified intranet. A Pulsar spokesman said the Lanham, Md., company has been notified verbally that it will receive the contract. The ATM equipment and transmission services will be supplied by Sprint Corp.'s Government Systems Division, a Pulsar subcontractor. Neither Pulsar nor the Defense Information Systems Agency would
DOD Briefing Book
The Defense Information Systems Agency is still sending missionaries to find converts to its Common Operating Environment initiative. Now U.S. allies, ever eager to leverage the Pentagon's technology investments, clamor for the COE, too. Sources at DISA said two large allies have requested permission to use COE components for systems development.
This time it's the Apple's turn to take a bite out of the Rat
When the Rat is asked his opinion about the future of Apple Computer Inc., he harks back to his recently mandated sensitivity training. He tries to deliver a gentle assessment, noting, for instance, the company's somewhat improved financial position. But after an experience he's just had with an Apple product, the Whiskered One secretly would rejoice if the Cupertino, Calif., company was swallowed by a convenient earthquake.
Vendors need GSA to spread the wealth of information
The protest venue changed for unsatisfied bidders when the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals lost its Brooks Act charter last week, but the definition of an interested party in a contract dispute remains the same. That definition is set forth in the Competition in Contracting Act. Companies that traditionally bid as prime contractors have less difficulty with the concept of interested party than subcontractors or vendors that are only wannabe primes. Subs should
Look, no hands--but Voice 2.0 needs a lot of memory to work
Imagine controlling your computer or writing e-mail without a keyboard and mouse. Think how it would reduce repetitive-stress injury and help users with disabilities. If you're interested in voice recognition for any of these purposes, take a look at Voice 2.0 for Windows. One caveat: You'll need a better-than-average desktop PC.
Mighty Microsoft limits access on NT Workstations upgrade
Does your LAN even need Microsoft Windows NT Server to operate an NT-based World Wide Web site? Here are some points to ponder as NT 4.0 hits the market. If you already run an NT PC as a Web server and plan to upgrade to NT 4.0, you probably know that Microsoft Corp.'s beta 4.0 software limits the number of unique IP addresses that can contact an NT Workstation 4.0 Web server to 10 or
Kudos to chefs
Recently GCN editors had the task of jurying the World Wide Web site contest sponsored by the Federal Webmasters Workshop held last week in Bethesda, Md. I therefore spent a week of evenings browsing deep into some 40 sites nominated by your colleagues. Those sites represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of volume of federal Web activity. According to statistics in the White House home page, more than 180,000 pages are supported
For Subcontractors, it's the prime's way or the highway
FEDWATCH By Bob Deller The protest venue changed for unsatisfied bidders when the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals lost its Brooks Act charter last week, but the definition of an interested party in a contract dispute remains the same. That definition is set forth in the Competition in Contracting Act. Companies that traditionally bid as prime contractors have less difficulty with the concept of interested party than subcontractors or vendors that are only
Defense makes critical system switch to GCCS
The Pentagon held its breath last month and switched to the Global Command and Control System, ending one of the most sensitive system cutovers in Defense Department history. The 20 Honeywell mainframes that host GCCS' venerable predecessor, the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS), are still humming and will provide backup for an indefinite period.
Low-priced tools rein in brute power of Web search engines
Finding the information you want on the World Wide Web is getting increasingly complicated. Most users rely on powerful commercial search engines to query by key word or concept. But when a query returns, say, 10,000 hits, you have your work cut out for you. Each of the leading search engines creates its own database, so you wind up with a different set of pointers from each.
Code blue for MLS
A "brain-dead idea." That's what retired Air Force General Carl O'Berry called it. He was referring to multilevel security. MLS perhaps isn't brain-dead. But it has been frustratingly out of reach of the Defense Department since--well, since the department had any sort of computer network. Today, MLS remains very much in the future.
Sharpen your points with cleaner charts and graphs
Every systems manager has searched for just the right chart to sell a program or project, to persuade our audience. We've all had to display complex information in a manner that will make analysis easy and straightforward. This is not a new problem. William Playfair's 1786 classic on skyrocketing debt was the first such chart, the start of a 200-year tradition. He created it as a cornerstone of his polemic against the British government's policy
Features pump up slim, nimble notebooks
Thin is in. Notebook computers are slimming down, while their hard drives are ballooning. In the next year, the notebook marketplace will be hopping--some manufacturers will introduce a new portable every three months as they phase out older models. Intel Corp.'s 150-MHz Pentium for notebooks will make a debut, but don't expect much boost to processing power. The bus on a Pentium 133 runs at 66 MHz; the Pentium 150 will be on a 60-MHz
Latest decisions by Supreme Court are boon to contractors
This past session of the Supreme Court was an unusually active one in the field of government contract law. In a June column, I discussed the Hercules case in which the government escaped contract liability for damages paid to soldiers by the companies that made Agent Orange [GCN, June 24, Page 69]. The contractor side lost that case, but two recent decisions against the government tip the scales the other way.
DOD Briefing Book
Lockheed Martin Corp. has begun the functionality, security and performance (FSP) testing of the 19 commercial products that make up its Defense Message System package. Defense Department sources said the FSP testing, which follows individual product compliance tests by the product manufacturers, is the real furnace from which DMS must emerge.
Net connections can be tortoises--or hares
Sometimes it is difficult to talk with others about their experiences surfing the Internet. It is as if we are discussing entirely different beasts. The old story about the blind men describing an elephant comes to mind. The Net is so huge that two people can spend months and never happen upon the same World Wide Web pages.
This Old House meets George Jetson at hub of R.Fink's burrow
The Rat, like all truly well-adjusted network professionals, is a masochist. But there's a limit to the delightful agonies in a standard work day--even the standard workday of a network manager. So the Rat decided to install his own enterprise network at home. Everyone knows that living on the bleeding edge of networking means being the first on your block with a Fast Ethernet switch in your hall closet. However, the Rat didn't count on
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