Lockheed Martin Corp. won an $8 million contract to provide a fingerprint identification-based processing system to the Florida Department of Education.
Compaq Computer Corp., GTSI Corp., MicronPC LLC and PlanetGov Inc. all won seats on the Veterans Affairs Procurement of Computer Hardware and Software-2 contract vehicle.
Officials with the departments of Defense and Justice rejected proposals by the telecommunications industry to allocate more spectrum for commercial use.
The National Security Agency has developed a powerful security system, called NetTop, that could make working with classified documents easier and less costly. The agency is now seeking integrators to incorporate the new system in their own solutions for other government agencies, said Edouard Bugnion of VMWare, which developed along with NSA.
Computer Sciences Corp., El Segundo, Calif., has been selected to provide systems engineering and technical services to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. CSC estimates the value of the contract to be approximately $250 million over five years, if all options are exercised.
Solutions-oriented purchasing and homeland security were the two drivers of this year's FOSE government IT trade show, held March 19-21 at the Washington, D.C., Convention Center.
The Transportation Security Administration is accepting proposals for a smart-card system to authenticate transportation workers, such as pilots and fight attendants.
By Joab Jackson, Preeti Vasishtha, Jason Miller and John Breeden II
Xybernaut Corp., Fairfax, Va., has introduced a wearable computer for disabled students. Called XyberKids, this computer is packaged in a nylon backpack and can help students with written expression, conversion of text and pictures into structured speech, supplemental communication through audio output devices and software for improving study habits and organizational skills.
The General Services Administration announced plans to have a prototype for its e-government authentication and digital signature initiative running by the end of the year.
Adobe Systems Inc. is talking with the National Archives and Records Administration about making its portable document format the archiving standard for file formats.
Science Applications International Corp. won a task order from the General Services Administration to support the Federal Computer Incident Response Center.
The standards board of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association approved the communications "Bluetooth" specification for wireless personal area networks.
Government agencies are approaching IT problems more like businesses and, as a result, companies are sharpening their pitches to highlight solutions rather than products, according to vendors at FOSE 2002. "We're going more towards the solutions and partnership approach," said Bruce Klein of Hewlett-Packard Co.
Security was very much on the minds of attendees at the 2002 FOSE trade show, as vendors displayed product lines and followed through on new homeland security sales strategies in light the heightened concerns following Sept. 11.
Companies that provide authentication services are pushing federal agencies to outsource digital certification to contractors, claiming that in-house solutions could end up costing more while not being interoperable with other agencies' systems.
