Fed buyers try leasing their IT from resellers
Through leases ranging from a few thousand dollars to several million, agencies have begun using the new option available on more than a dozen General Services Administration schedule contracts. So far this year, GSA has given 15 vendors approval to lease products under Multiple-Award Schedule contracts. Last month, the Defense Department Health Affairs Office at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., agreed to pay $258,000 to lease 100 Dell Computer Corp. Dimension desktop systems from
Forest Service shuns PCs and NCs, buys X Window terminals instead
The Agriculture Department agency is bucking the PC LAN and client-server trends, but not by buying NCs. Instead, it is going with an X Window System terminal upgrade for its 35,000 employees. The service's 900 offices are migrating from a 1980s Data General Corp. minicomputer system with dumb terminals to IBM Corp. AIX 4.1.5 Unix servers and X Window terminals.
HHS pros answer call for help
The two specialists for the fee-based Information Technology Service of the Health and Human Services Department had been besieged with requests from analysts at the personnel office of the Health Resources and Services Administration in Rockville, Md. The HRSA analysts had to access 2,000 records that held 10M of payroll and personnel data. It was stored in a Microsoft Access 2.0 database on a server from NetFrame Systems Inc. of Milpitas, Calif.
The library is open 24 hours
The system at http://thomas.loc.gov has become a well-known World Wide Web resource for bills, the Congressional Record and committee proceedings. The library chose InQuery software from Sovereign Hill Software Inc. of Dedham, Mass., to perform Boolean and relevancy searches in Thomas as well as the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection.
DOD users to get free use of leading anti-virus packages
The Defense Information Systems Agency last week awarded departmentwide contracts for products from the nation's two leading anti-virus vendors. DISA chose McAfee Associates Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., and Symantec Corp. of Cupertino, Calif., to supply anti-virus software to DOD personnel for home and work use. The GCN Lab has reviewed both companies' products; Symantec's Norton AntiVirus received the Reviewer's Choice designation [GCN, July 14, Page 33].
MathSoft package mines data
The package visually models data on desktop computers, said Shawn Javid, director of marketing and business development for the Cambridge, Mass., company's Data Analysis Products Division. Besides statistical modeling, S-Plus can do nonparametric modeling, clustering, classification and summarization of data. The package runs on any Microsoft Windows 3.x, Windows 95 or NT platform with 16M of RAM, and it works with Open Database Connectivity-compliant databases. Javid said versions for five Unix platforms are in the works.
CEO lays out plan for Corel
CorelDraw was the Ottawa company's flagship product until the purchase of Novell Inc.'s PerfectOffice suite, including WordPerfect, in 1996. Corel also bought the Paradox database manager from Borland International Inc. that year, having licensed it earlier. An engineer by trade, Cowpland received a doctorate in engineering from Carleton University and cofounded Mitel Corp. The 53-year-old native of Sussex, England, plays squash and tennis, has a black belt in martial arts and competes in triathlons.
Move over, Joe Industry; feds buy latest IT just like you do
Acting for the aircraft carrier group, the Space and Naval Warfare Command bought 100 Digital Equipment Corp. 200-MHz Pentium Pro machines from the BPA, which was based on Digital's General Services Administration schedule contracts. Larry Core, project manager for the Tactical Advanced Computer Office in San Diego, said the new PCs can accept up to two processors and the servers can be four-way.
DFAS finds multifunction app
He said he didn't need a "killer piece of flowcharting software" that could perform motion and simulation modeling. Instead, Guarino, an organizational development consultant with the Defense Finance Accounting Service's Human Resources Office found what he wanted in Micrografx Inc.'s ABC Flowcharter 4.0. At DFAS, users analyze different functions with network and organizational charts, checklists and other charts. Some of the service's re-engineering projects rely on timelines, spokes and Venn diagrams.
IMPAC card's not for everyone
Many contracting officers and information technology managers believe the government's IMPAC credit card quickly gets them the latest products in small, affordable chunks. But the card's buying limit of $2,500 lessens agency buying power, said Thomas Boswell, acquisition team leader for the Education Department's chief information officer. Boswell said sometimes volume buys from large contracts are cheaper, although spot pricing on General Services Administration schedule contracts does let vendors cut prices.
Alaska warms to art software
If you're accused of a crime in Alaska and can't afford an attorney, don't give up hope. You might be rescued by Visio software. Gary Eichhorn, a computer systems administrator with the Federal Public Defender Office (FPDO) in Anchorage, has used Visio Corp.'s graphics software since 1993 for making courtroom displays. The FPDO division of the U.S. Courts represents defendants who can't afford attorneys. With the Visio 4.1 Technical package, Eichhorn
Feds take a wait'n'see attitude on MMX
Agencies are in no hurry to buy Pentium MMX PCs. Several agency users said the applications and the track record do not yet exist to encourage big buys of Pentium PCs that have Intel Corp.'s new chip set with multimedia extensions. Some high-end scientific users plan to use the PCs sooner, but most federal users said they want to see more administrative applications available before making the investment.
Help (4.6) arrives at help desk
Help 4.6 from GWI Software Inc. has streamlined help desk operations for the Division of Systems and Network Management at the Health and Human Services Department's Information Technology Service in Rockville, Md. Help works with Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes groupware. Callers to the 20-employee help desk first speak with a technician, who logs in a ticket for each call in Help. A self-building knowledge base in the software from GWI, of Vancouver, Wash., then suggests
From Day 1, VAMC is paperless
June 26, 1995, was a historic day for Veteran's Affairs Department hospitals. On that day, the VA opened a medical center in West Palm Beach, Fla., that has never used paper charts. "I don't know of any other hospital in the world" without paper charts, said Irfan Shaikh, health information manager at the Florida medical center.
Net computers to be tested in fed agencies
Several federal agencies have scheduled pilots to test the NC, or network computer, as an alternative to the PC. An Agriculture Department office in Denver is among those planning to try NCs, simplified computers that can cruise the Internet and perform basic tasks by downloading server-based applets instead of storing applications locally.
In new enterprise license deal, DISA hands out IBM AntiVirus
The Defense Information Systems Agency is distributing IBM Corp.'s AntiVirus software free to users across the Defense Department, even though DISA has an enterprise license for similar software from Norman Data Defense Systems Inc. DISA licensed the IBM product in a June 13 deal with Indelible Blue Inc., a Raleigh, N.C., reseller on the General Services Administration's Multiple-Award Schedule. The one-year agreement, worth $200,000 to $500,000, allows DISA to distribute AntiVirus [GCN, Aug. 28, 1995,
Novell banks on Green River to succeed NetWare, take on NT
Gregory Reade is the kind of systems decision-maker whose choices will determine whether Green River--Novell Inc.'s NetWare 4.1 successor, due in September--will keep Novell afloat in the networking software market. And Reade has decided to hedge his bets in upgrading the 250-user NetWare LAN he administers at Federal Reserve Board headquarters in Washington. He's moving the LAN users to Microsoft Windows NT Workstation.
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