Seat management still unproven Five years from now, the General Services Administration and NASA may be viewed as pioneers in federal information technology management for leading the push into desktop outsourcing. But that is not the case yet. In desktop outsourcing frequently called seat manage
Not too late for training investment For the federal information technology acquisition community, last week's announcement that the Air Force had awarded two blanket purchase agreements to fulfill its desktop and server needs marked the end of an era. The Air Force's move away from its long and st
Don't gun down a good deal An FBI proposal to charge for running computer background checks on prospective gun buyers has run smack into a highly charged political wall. Some members of Congress and representatives of the gun lobby have charged the FBI with levying an unfair tax on gun dealers an
The Defense Department can't seem to win when it comes to modernization. Just when the Pentagon is poised to revamp its logistics operations, the program falls victim to alltoofamiliar congressional turf wars.
The Internet has made it possible for agencies to share information across government and with the public with previously unimaginable ease and relatively little cost. But recent cases have underscored the fact that agencies have the right to share information electronically only if they provide the means to protect it.
Set a place at the table for CIOs The federal government's struggle to integrate the chief information officer position into the daytoday business of an agency is well documented. So the Information Technology Association of America's latest report showing that many CIOs still feel left out of th
The Office of Personnel Management, a new player in the unfolding millennium drama, has given a muchneeded boost to the government's Year 2000 fix by crafting an innovative policy to help agencies attract and retain computer programmers.
After staking out a hard line against the government awarding contracts to itself, cooler heads seem to be prevailing on Capitol Hill.
The decision by the Defense Information Systems Agency to move ahead with the systems integration contract on its nextgeneration network acquisition in spite of a protest is only the latest example of what critics charge is a pervasive Defense Department attitude. Many DOD officials really believe
What's the problem with GATEC? or many supporters of electronic commerce, it was very bad news that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) had reorganized and would be eliminating the organization that created and supported the Government Acquisition Through Electronic Commerce solution sele
The whole issue of encryption policy and software export licenses is fraught with controversy. The software industry, convinced that the current policy puts it at a competitive disadvantage, has been lobbying Congress hard to remove the restrictions. The intelligencegathering agencies argue just a
The testimony of CIA director John Deutch before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations reminds us again that the new enemy is not likely to be any of the usual suspects. Instead, we will fight cyberterrorists who attack the nation's information system