Lotus delivers Web-integrated 5.0 versions of Domino Server, Notes
Lotus Development Corp., after several missed deadlines, this month delivered the 5.0 releases of Domino Server and Notes, capping the company's most ambitious software effort to date. With the announcement, Lotus officials reported the Environmental Protection Agency will install the new version. The release, coming 18 months after Domino and Notes 4.6, is a one-stop shop for Internet messaging, electronic commerce, global collaborative computing and knowledge management, Lotus chairman Jeff Papows said.
IRS creates app workaround
What Opal toolkit does Because IRS programming resources are so heavily dedicated to year 2000 and modernization programs, the tax agency had to find a workaround for an antiquated green-screen application that tracks large cash transfers.
TeamSite promises control of Web content
The premature Web postings that recently embarrassed the Bureau of Labor Statistics twice within three months could never have happened on sites with automated workflow, according to the chief executive officer of an Internet software company. Martin Brauns, CEO of Interwoven Inc. of Los Altos, Calif., said the posting errors by BLS employees showed "the Web has become as mission-critical as accounting systems, whether agencies realize it or not. Updating with a shout across the cubicle
HCFA begins code checkups
The Health Care Financing Administration has turned to one of the oldest independent validation and verification vendors in the mission-critical software business to ensure that Medicare and Medicaid systems will process claims without disruption after Jan. 1. AverStar Inc. of Burlington, Mass., will work with HCFA's quality assurance teams and outside contractors. The company also provides software quality assurance to NASA's space shuttle and International Space Station programs.
Beyond.com wins DLA software distribution contract
The Defense Logistics Agency has awarded its second electronic software distribution contract to Beyond.com, formerly software.net, of Sunnyvale, Calif. The latest DLA contract, whose value was not announced, follows a $50 million award to the same company two years ago for up to 70,000 licenses for Microsoft Corp. desktop and server packages plus software upgrades for up to five years.
App helps NSA speed-clean U.S. secret documents
When President Clinton signed a 1995 executive order to declassify government documents after 25 years, the National Security Agency faced the task of sifting through tens of millions of pages much earlier than it had expected. Prior to Executive Order 12598, classified documents had to be held 50 years before NSA would declassify them.
IPNet Solutions creates a suite to make enterprisewide e-commerce easy to use
The key to making electronic commerce work is 100 percent participation, according to Robert Shields, marketing director for IPNet Solutions Inc. of Newport Beach, Calif. "The way you get that is to lower the cost and make it simpler to use," Shields said. The company's IP.Net.Suite includes IP.object.link, which lets trading partners exchange any type of data or business object created by various enterprise resource planning applications.
Grants system makes tracks
Federal Transit Administration officials credit luck and a no-frills approach for faster-than-expected completion of the client-server Transportation Electronic Award and Management system. The agency is nearly a year ahead of schedule in fielding the dial-up version of its mainframe TEAM grants administration system, officials said. FTA administers $5 billion yearly in federal transportation grants.
Women make the grade in IT
When Anne Thomson Reed was interviewed for a top job at Agriculture, she was asked if she could be effective in a department of mostly men. Reed had spent the previous 12 years in management in the Navy. The gender issue, she told them, "is not a problem." Highly valued for their technical and managerial skills, Reed and other women have reached the top ranks of information technology management in the federal government.
BMC Software touts tools to boost agency productivity
"We're focused now on making agencies more productive, not just their information technology departments," Morris said. BMC officials said multiplatform products to manage application performance, availability and recovery are the drawing cards for the Defense Department, which wants to prevent incidents such as the operator error that stalled a Navy Smart Ship [GCN, Nov. 9, 1998, Page 6].
Shoddy shape of state, local 2000 readiness worries GAO
The readiness of state and local governments is becoming the chief source of concern for General Accounting Office officials responsible for overseeing progress with year 2000 fixes. "We're less optimistic when we look at state and local governments," said Joel Willemssen, GAO director for civilian agency information systems. Speaking at a recent year 2000 forum in Washington, Willemssen said the lack of detailed readiness data from key economic sectors also is worrisome because of potential
Suite creates Web site for DOD, aerospace vendors to share data
The Defense Department initiative to cut the cost of building and maintaining aircraft and missile systems is still alive, supported by software from Lockheed Martin Co. subsidiary Formtek Inc. The company's CITISolution represents the latest incarnation of the electronic commerce data management system that conforms to DOD's Continuous Acquisition and Lifecycle Support standards, said Rodney Heisterberg, director of electronic commerce solutions for Formtek of Palo Alto, Calif.
FERC is first to use VA's payroll servicing center
When the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month started paying its 1,200 employees through a new human resources application, it marked dual milestones—one for FERC and one for the Veterans Affairs Administration. The development of the agency's Management, Administrative and Payroll System (MAPS) represents one way FERC is reinventing itself for a less-regulated energy market, said Todd Singleton, an associate partner with Andersen Consulting of Chicago and a consultant on the project.
Radiology imaging goes 3-D
Biomedical researchers at the National Institutes of Health are excited by the prospect of digital radiology workstations that can analyze 3-D images in real time. For the past year, the NIH Center for Information Technology has been developing software to analyze 3-D echocardiograms (ECGs) on Silicon Graphics Inc. Onyx2 InfiniteReality workstations. The software makes analyzing ECGs more accurate, NIH computer engineer Raisa Freidlin said.
Storage area networks take the place of hot spares
The storage area network, or SAN, is so new that agency network managers have had little time yet to evaluate the high-availability storage architecture. SANs are designed to save money for sites that buy twice as many servers as they need for data processing just to protect their databases against hardware failure.
Argus develops trusted Gibraltar OS for e-commerce, other federal online apps
Argus Systems Group Inc.—keeping pace with rivals Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc., —has designed a trusted operating system for electronic commerce and online government applications. Argus' preconfigured Gibraltar operating system is based on SunSoft Solaris 2.5.1. "You can install it right out of the box and drop applications into it" without any special knowledge of trusted systems, said Paul McNabb, Argus chief technology officer. The current Gibraltar OS supports 200 server compartments or partitions.
Is it possible to build software free of defects?
CHANTILLY, Va.—Software quality experts are a demanding bunch. They see the nation's infrastructure being put at risk by poor software quality—and they are not even talking about year 2000 vulnerabilities. But even the experts at the International Software Assurance Certification Conference here last week could not reach a consensus on the root cause of poor quality.
State digitizes passport photos
The State Department has updated its Travel Document Issuance System to issue new U.S. domestic passports with digitized photos. At least 15,000 U.S. passports were stolen in 1997, making identity fraud one of the fastest-growing crimes, Rubin said. The anti-counterfeiting features of the new passport data page will deter traffic in stolen passports.
Cascade server app lets users mesh Unix and NT platforms
Sun Microsystems Inc. will add a new dimension to Unix and Microsoft Windows NT integration with its Solaris Sunlink Server application, code-named Cascade. Cascade is meant to provide scalability for Windows NT networks and a platform for NT server consolidation. Solaris supports up to 64 processors.
NIH opens mainframe access
Web-to-host access software has come along at the right time for Tim Barnes, branch chief at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Barnes, who heads the Intramural Technical Systems Branch, wants to put his Macintosh and PC users on an equal footing to search the institute's IBM IMS mainframe databases.
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