Group demos way to shop multiple e-catalogs
A coalition of government and industry groups last week demonstrated a pilot program to let agencies shop multiple online catalogs easily, securely and simultaneously. The Catalog Interoperability Pilot is a significant step in the development of ubiquitous electronic commerce because it will make it easy to compare products online, said G. Martin Wagner, associate administrator for governmentwide policy at the General Services Administration, during a presentation of the pilot last week.
Discord mars MAS program
Despite all the good will between the General Services Administration and Multiple-Award Schedule vendors in recent years, there is plenty of ill will over the schedule's pricing and audit clauses. That GSA and MAS vendors—after years of debate—are once again at odds over the requirement that vendors offer government users their best prices and that GSA has the right to audit vendors' books brought immediate discussion at the Federation of Government Information Processing Council's recent Acquisition
Agencies suffer an IT worker drought, GAO says
Already strapped for high-tech workers, agencies cannot find people to do year 2000 work, and managers expect the staffing problem to get worse, the General Accounting Office concluded in a new report. The work force deficiency could become complicated as industry and government vie for personnel from a limited pool of applicants, GAO said.
OMB exec: Feds need to finalize year 2000 contingency plans now
The Office of Management and Budget will increasingly focus on year 2000 contingency plans as agencies enter the final stretch for making their date codes ready, a senior administration official said. "Contingency plans are extremely important," said G. Edward DeSeve, OMB's deputy director of management and chairman of the Chief Information Officers Council.
CSC wins IRS' Prime contract
Following more than a decade of frustrated modernization efforts, the IRS last week recommitted itself to upgrading its antiquated tax systems by awarding the 15-year Prime contract—potentially worth $5 billion—to Computer Sciences Corp. The award kicks off the latest chapter of what has been one of the federal government's most expensive and drawn-out information technology efforts. It is an early victory for IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti and his new chief information officer, Paul J. Cosgrave.
Study pegs federal PC ownership cost at a cool $8,400/year
A study to calculate the total cost of ownership of desktop PCs at one General Services Administration office, conducted as the agency is developing a task order for the Seat Management Program contracts, found the GSA office spends an average of $8,400 per computer a year. The study is not completely representative because it looked at only a small portion of GSA—just 300 PC users, the agency's Seat program manager Wanda Smith said.
Policy for saving electronic records applies to PCs only, Justice asserts
In what appears to be a change of course, the Justice Department now adamantly contends that a disputed federal policy on saving electronic records applies only to PCs. The Justice Department and Public Citizen, a Washington public interest group, have been arguing the point in a series of letters to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Boeing drops its protest of Seat Management
Boeing Information Services Inc. is giving up its effort to win a General Services Administration Seat Management contract and dropping its protest. Boeing passed up the option of taking its protest of GSA Federal Technology Service's Seat Management Program contracts to the General Accounting Office. The deadline for filing a protest with GAO passed late last month. Boeing of Vienna, Va., filed an agency-level protest of GSA's Seat Management contracts in July.
Agencies are told to tap existing budgets for cyberterrorism security
At least for the coming year, agencies will have to use their own funds for cyberterrorism security efforts, officials working on the Clinton administration's critical infrastructure protection initiative said. The word came just before 14 agencies were to submit vulnerability studies on Nov. 18. Eight more agencies must submit similar studies in February.
Report: White House's cyberdefense too close for comfort
The Clinton administration's efforts to fight cyberterrorism could infringe on the civil liberties of citizens, a privacy advocate has charged. The recommendations of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) constitute "a proposal to extend the reach of law enforcement, to limit the means of government accountability, and to transfer more authority to the world of classification and secrecy. These proposals are more of a threat to our system of ordered liberty than any single
MAS audits irk vendors
The petition, authored by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association of Arlington, Va., and believed to be the first use of a little-noticed provision of the OFPP Authorization Act, contends that the pricing and audit clauses are inconsistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The group plans to submit the final petition next month.
Controversial dissemination bill comes up short
A bill criticized for creating a new bureaucracy for publishing government information died as Congress adjourned last month. There were last-minute attempts to attach the Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Reform Act, S 2288, to the fiscal 1999 omnibus spending bill. The efforts failed after facing strong opposition from Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who said he was concerned the bill would negate provisions of the Information Technology Management Reform Act.
GAO eases sole-source fears
A General Accounting Office report counters widespread suggestions that the government's increased use of multiple-award contracts has resulted in too many sole-source task orders. GAO said agencies varied in their efforts to promote competition within multiple-award contracts. "Two of the six organizations we reviewed consistently obtained competition for orders under multiple-award contracts, but the remaining four did not," the report said.
GSA posts schedule sales, contract details and other buying info on Web
Flooded by Freedom of Information Act requests about Multiple-Award Schedule contracts, the General Services Administration is creating a Web site that will provide access to the details of vendors' schedule sales. The Federal Supply Service gets hundreds of FOIA requests for contractor sales information, assistant commissioner of FSS for acquisitions William N. Gormley said this month at the GCN Forum luncheon in Washington.
Howard, the first CIO of FTS, to retire after 35 years in government
Steve Howard, the first chief information officer at the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service, will retire from his post at the end of the year, completing 35 years of government service. "I decided to retire because I've had a full, rewarding and satisfying career," he said, and this represents an "opportune time to move on to new challenges."
SBA creates virtual class to teach 2000 lessons
The Small Business Administration is finishing work on an online virtual classroom to help small businesses deal with their year 2000 problems. The virtual classroom is part of an overall effort organized by the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion. The Clinton administration last month spearheaded a National Y2K Action Week to get year 2000 information out to the public, and, especially, small and medium-sized businesses [GCN, Oct. 12, Page 8].
Senate official rallies troops to tackle year 2000 fixes
What's Bennett's plan? Buy eight new year 2000-ready PCs Upgrade four PCs Buy two new servers Buy or upgrade nine software packages Remove or make contingency plans for four other applications What he has ready 26 workstations: 10 ready 9 printers: 1 ready 2 network servers: None ready 26 applications: 16 ready, but not WordPerfect, Windows 95, Excel and cc:Mail
GSA's Wohlleben decides to go private
After more than 25 years as a public-sector employee, Paul Wohlleben last week called his federal career history. Wohlleben, most recently the chief information officer for the General Services Administration's Public Buildings Service, took a job as director of information technology consultants for the Washington office of Grant Thorton LLP of Chicago.
Federal stars shine at the 11th annual GCN banquet
Bedecked in black ties and flowing gowns, more than 1,000 federal information technology executives and vendors toasted one another at GCN's 11th annual Awards Banquet late last month. The event started with a meet-and-greet reception. Between dinner and the infamous dessert bar, though, the main event took place—recognition of excellence in the deployment of government IT.
GAO says agencies must tie ROI to business planning
Weighing information technology projects against their expected return on investment is all the rage, but ROI estimates must be tied to agency business practices to be effective, a General Accounting Office official says. "ROI is a fad; ROI is a theme; ROI is a requirement that is being implemented right now," said David L. McClure, assistant director for GAO's Office of Information Management and Policy Issues.
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