Category: Government Technology
February 24, 2006
A bizarre analogy for government contracting
This article on GovExec.com, about the reworked Alliant GWAC, contains a truly fantastic analogy about a problem that plagues many government IT procurements.
A typical federal statement of work resembles a grocery list, when it should resemble a directory of food categories, he said.…
Congressman Wu: “Federal Dollars Should Benefit The Whole, Not Just Majority” — (Medford Article)
I see that Oregon Congressman David Wu has sent a letter has sent a letter about Grants.gov’s Mac compatibility issue to Joshua Bolten, Director of OMB:
I am personally troubled by the overarching discrimination against Mac-users simply because they are considered the minority.…
February 13, 2006
Mac solution for Grants.gov
Over at my personal blog, where I mirror the grants-related posts I make here, Dave Schroeder of the University of Wisconin published this happy news:
The University of Wisconsin has
released a standalone package for using Grants.gov on Mac OS X as a
service…
Grants.gov won’t be platform-agnostic
Yesterday I posted about a Washington Post article that was highly critical of Grants.gov’s inability to provide e‑forms for the Mac platform. One comment on that post really set me thinking. Claus Wilkes noted that while a Mac e‑forms client would help, the…
February 12, 2006
Washington Post slams Grants.gov’s Mac Woes
Looks like the mainstream press has caught wind of Grants.gov’s electronic forms Mac compatibility problems: The Washington Post’s Federal Page features an article about it tomorrow. The article is unfortunately sensationalist and is factually incorrect as a result — Grants.gov is…
February 6, 2006
GCN: OMB to name grants service providers
Now that the FY2007 budget is released, everyone can talk freely about the Grants Management Line of Business shared service providers (SSPs) that have already been chosen:
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services / Administration for Children…
January 27, 2006
Performance-based contracting not a panacea
GovExec has a nice article about an AFCEA event at which Ed Meagher, CTO at the VA, and others give a reality check about the limits of performance-based contracting and earned value management. I especially like this quote:
“Earned value … is like being…
January 23, 2006
Top 20 Excellence.Gov Award Winners announced
After much debate, the 20 Excellence.Gov Award winners were announced last week. The awards are run by the Industry Advisory Council’s Collaboration and Transformation SIG (formerly called the e‑Gov SIG). The 20 winners are listed below, and the top 5 will…
Grants.gov featured in The Post
Northrop Grumman’s contract as systems integrator for Grants.gov is featured in an article about the HHS system in today’s Washington Post. The growth in use of Grants.gov is mentioned, as is the 75%-of-all-grant-opportunities target for FY2006.…
DHS’s Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation Open Source Hardening Project
Also from GCN:
The Homeland Security Department has procured a bug testing service for popular open-source programs, one that will submit applications such as Apache and MySQL to a level of scrutiny enjoyed by many commercial software providers. Open-source project leaders could…