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Oracle and Apple aren't even in the top 100 technology contractors. IBM and Microsoft are dwarfed by companies a lot of people have never even heard of, CSRA, CACI, SAIC, Harris, etc. Public sector contracting is it's own unique beast and succeeding in Federal contracting requires a unique combination of political prowess and tolerance for bureaucracy and, at times, sheer stupidity that many companies just won't tolerate... or even understand.

These companies are masters at gaming the system and competing against them is very, very tough. I came into Federal contracting through the company I worked for being bought out. I did it for a few years thinking it would be interesting and I could make some sort of a difference. I finally told them to move me to a different office or I was quitting because I couldn't stand it anymore.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whose in office. They've already been doing this and they will continue to do it long after Trump is out of office. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of letting industry get this tightly in bed with the government (specifically the military) in his farewell address and it proved to be very prescient.

Dude, the whole "never get fired for buying Microsoft" thing is over. I work on large government contracts for a living now, and ever since Oracle's GSA contract was canceled, we can't expand fast enough to convert people over to PostgreSQL on Linux. The whole US government is Open Source First now, following the OS stack adoption of most fast growing companies today. It's only the tired old companies who still trot out their old Microsoft servers for everything, and who wants to work for them?

The Microsoft FUD anecdotes had a good run, but we're already at the point where innovative companies consider their software part of the same legacy mess as Cobol.

After all, they know what terrible security looks like from 2006

http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2006/03/17/government-gets-nearfailing-grade-on-fisma-scorecard.aspx

Many years ago I applied for and received "Secret" clearance (long since abandoned). The only thing they did was make me fill out a questionnaire. That's consistent with this story regarding NASA employees.

http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/01/11/house-websites-go-to-drupal.aspx

The House of Representatives will be moving all their sites to Drupal; the freshmen of the 112th Congress get theirs first. Here's one example:

http://brooks.house.gov/

It would be a little hard to figure out. You can figure that most government employees have a Microsoft end user CAL, and then do a check on basic contracts that Microsoft won for services. It would be harder to compute all the contracts won by other companies that then purchase Microsoft software. However the prices the DoD gets are cheap compared to the regular volume price, for instance you can get a MSDN subscription for 3 year at a cheaper price that the regular volume price subscription is for 1 year.
See http://washingtontechnology.com/toplists/top-100-lists/2009.aspx for 2009 technology companies. Most contracts are public record so you can get the figures if you want to do the searching.
However the DoD is the largest Microsoft customer and was able to use its weight to force Microsoft to extent support for Windows 2000 when the move to Windows 2k3 was taking to long.

Mostly weapons systems:
http://washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2010/04/07/Contract-countdown.aspx?Page=1

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

Let's not forget that Vivek Kundra was Virginia's CIO when that fiasco took place. I predict that this will be at least as bad as the Virginia situation.

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

"Services include visual design, user interface design, information architecture, design engineering, project management, interactive data visualization and Web application-level functionality."

"At some point, the reporting requirements and frequency of updates for the site might be changed or expanded and would therefore require further design and integration, the notice states." (money pit - government customers are infamous for changing or adding on new requirements and projects are never delivered)

"The site must also:

        * Evaluate data quality to optimize large, highly complex, rapidly changing datasets.
        * Automatically replicate data.
        * Standardize, normalize and cleanse data.
        * Respond quickly to requests for data.
        * Link to high-value business processes, such as fraud detection."

(source: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2009/06/15/Recovery.gov-board-seeks-vendor.aspx/)

I feel $18 million is deservedly bad press at this time, and I'm certain there's a lot of waste and padding, but this is not, as some posters here seem to think, just a web application like a shopping cart.

More here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/nl2hld

I believe the found the VR causes brain damage of some kind. http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/1994/07/28/could-the-surgeon-general-warn-vr-is-hazardous-to-your-health.aspx

Present This Our new Venture, www.immuneid.com - Patented and ready to be a terrific oportunity to move on. Immune ID works in a very simple, safe and practical way. With Immune ID on documents, credit cards and credentials, the identification device on them will always remain deactivated unless the user activates them through physical touch. Without human contact, any reading and/or writing attempt will fail. Thus, your information is protected from harmful use. The user will also have a visual and/or audio confirmation included in the device*. Immune ID is an innovative protection system for all electronic documents using technologies such as RFID, Rubee, Smart Dots, EAS, etc.: passports, credit cards, driving licenses, access cards, etc. Some recent and important information regarding the Immune ID initiative. Hillary Clinton Initiative: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/298 88-1.html?topic=daily_news (following our communication) http://rfidlawblog.mckennalong.com/archives/federa l-legislation-senator-hillary-clinton-to-introduce -comprehensive-consumer-privacy-legislation .html US Passports Shield Demo Vulnerabilities http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XXaqraF7pI http://www.theregister.com/2007/03/06/daily_mail_p assport_clone/ http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/26/HNblackh atrfid_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/video/archives/2007/02/rs a_ioactive.html Translated article appearing in German site about Immune ID http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&o e=UTF-8&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.gulli.com/ne ws/immuneid-den-angeblichen-2007-01-24/&prev=/lang uage_tools Sincerely, - Fernando Catania fernando@immuneid.com

"Chertoff's plan to convert U.S. Visit to the [10 finger] standard comes after months of criticism from Congress, federal agencies and the media about incompatibilities between U.S. Visit's two fingerprints and the FBI's IAFIS criminal database, which uses 10 prints."

http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/20_15/26 672-1.html

If we're going to generalize like that, I would say that calling any American music good is also insane. 99% of commercial music is crap, regardless of country. Stupidity is global.

While it's true that stupidity is global, business practices vary greatly between countries and cultures. For instance, businesses in Western European countries like Denmark are generally thought to be more above-board than businesses in countries where corruption and lawlessness is rampant, such as Russia, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, and the USA. Surely America's business culture (especially the practices of the RIAA members) has an effect on the music commonly available here, making it worse than in other places.

• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems company profile (detailed), 8 September 2002.
• The first 90,000 miles are toll-free, Cisco Systems Newsroom news story (brief), as seen on Newsroom, 21 February 2001.

Articles discussing this include:

• Now that's a long distance call!, Humans in Space, NASA, 3 June 2003.
• Johnson Space Center, NASA Spinoff magazine, 2001.http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/spinoff2001 /johnson.html -->
• This isn't Houston, Lafe Low, CIO Magazine, 1 October 2001.
• Voice over IP takes a giant step forward, Jon William Toigo, Washington Technology vol. 16 no. 1, 2 April 2001.
• Astronauts call home via shuttle VoIP link, William Jackson, Government Computing News, vol. 20 no. 5, 5 March 2001.

I am sure the EU will recognise the more robust economic model "Open" provides to the world economies with which we all compete for market share.

The USA Congress and GWBush may not understand "Open" economics and basic S&T+R&D to future market products; So, the rest of the world will bury the USA economy in about 10 or 20 years.
Who gives a shit (not polticians, televangelist, fools ...), I have no kids, and I'll be dead of old age in another 20 years; So, I no longer give a shit how US citizens vote ... It is all a big fucking joke on US).

!HAVEFUN!

http://www.opentechdev.org/index.php/Open_Technolo gy_Development_Roadmap
http://www.acq.osd.mil/actd/articles/OTDRoadmapFin al.pdf
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily _news/28963-1.html
http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 06/07/open_source_in.html

OH21 - Reality is self-induced hallucination.

I'm sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Boeing (their main competition for the F-35 contract) is getting most of the press with its UAV fleet, and manned fighters, under the current Pentagon brass, are going the way of the dodo.

Nothing at all...

Here's hoping that most Congresspeople see this bill for what it is - lunacy.

Almost as lunatic as giving away a ton of public-owned TV spectrum rights, instead of auctioning them for the estimated $40,000,000,000 they might have gone for. Oh, and two senators decided to vote against that one.

As I recall, to get a product put on the GSA schedule in the first place (for purchase by government customers), the vendor has to offer their "best commercial price" to the GSA. So it's not surprising that that GSA/DOD price is low. Collectively, the Federal government is buying in bulk after all.

(Old) reference: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/9_17/news /9039-1.html and search on "best commercial price".

Most applications nowadays are web apps in the military. Partially it was a rush to keep up to date. Since most work ends up being done by contractors, the military can't stay very far behind any longer, and expect to have contractor coders. Another reason was a desire to link into mandated centralized authentication mechanisms. So, a lot of the traffic is web traffic, it's just 443 rather than 80. There are relatively few http sites, since the regs call for any site that implements authentication of any sort to use SSL.

The GIG is basically a name. Not much is really changing about the military networks - the borders are having even more defense added, but they were already pretty heavily defended. The interconnects are being sped up, but once again, they were pretty fast already, what i've seen is incremental improvements. IPV6 compatible hardware is being substituted for that which isn't. A really aggressive date for total conversion (2006) is out there. I'm sure some satellites are going to be lofted to provide overseas connectivity, since the govt is leasing private satellite bandwidth to provide overseas connectivity due to the previously noted problems with existing links.

Probably the biggest change is that strict accountability up and down the line is being organized, so that if someone runs a rogue host that is not compliant with relevant regulations and standards, the system is shut down, either by contacting the owning organization to do so or having the next higher organization in the hierarchy shut them down. In the past, there was probably a resistance to just pulling the cable on people - no longer.

To be honest, this is probably my last post on the topic here. I'm tired of educating anti-American jerks. They can just keep on mouthing off all by themselves while knowing nothing. This whole article and the posters therein have been the biggest bucket of idiots I have heard from in a long time. Nothing personal to the parent poster - that's why I replied to you rather than one of them.

What about the state sponsored outsourcing? The US government is actively supporting outsourcing, examples here, here, and

An interesting paper, however it's completly idealogical. Consider the IRS's woes with its modernization effort. Also, think about all the mission critical software running on near-end-of-life VAX equipement. Letting software age without proper maintenance and improvement is a dangerous thing.

I see no reason that we should have to pay for Accuweather to make a pretty graphic or the like. By opening up the data on the Internet you provide researchers, hobbyists, and tinkerers with a means to get up-to-date and accurate weather information easily as well as historical data.

NWS also talks about their Information Quality guidelines here - detailing their information and what is available.

Who knows maybe someone will develop a Weather@Home model which runs on the same principle as SETI@Home. It would be pretty cool to start doing climate models outside of the governments and universties Research labs...

"The light bulb was not invented by the candle industry looking to improve output." --Joab Jackson

(Ok, so you're not claiming they invented themselves from typewriter to PDA - but it's such a good quote! :) )

The US Government is a big customer of PeopleSoft. In fact, the Department of Defense is replacing their legacy personnel and financial systems with PeopleSoft.

DIMHRS key to more Northrop Grumman military HR work

Mars.

Washington Technology makes your NPR reporter look like "60 Minutes meets Michael Moore". Staff "writer" Gail Repsher Emery basically regurgitates Diebold's spinsational press release in her article.

Washington Technology makes your NPR reporter look like "60 Minutes meets Michael Moore". Staff "writer" Gail Repsher Emery basically regurgitates Diebold's spinsational press release in her article.

Washington Technology makes your NPR reporter look like "60 Minutes meets Michael Moore". Staff "writer" Gail Repsher Emery basically regurgitates Diebold's spinsational press release in her article.

I was searching Google for leads to the goevernment's use of OSS, and found this insightful article. Washington technology.com You might want to make reference to it in your letter. Granted it is from the chairman of Open-Source Software Institute. But the information is still relavant to this issue. It will give some info about the situation, and give explanations of what OSS really is.

Two of the biggest culprits behind outsourcing are Accenture and Mackenzie.

Accenture, which used to be Arthur Andersen, the same assholes responsible for Enron. Why wasn't that company's back broken after that fiasco? They single handedly destroy the life savings of ten of thousands of Enron employees and now they're getting paid to tell US employers to outsource?

Oh yeah, and they're incorporated in a tax haven, so they aren't paying their share of taxes in any of the countries in which they do business.

I fucking hate consultants.

You have to remember that just because there is a recall election, doesn't mean the official in power will be removed. more then 50% of folks, who care enough to show up at the polls, still have to say "Yes I want to recall", and then pick someone else.

So at best, a minority of the voters can get a recall election, but a majority still has to say Yes to recall/remove the politician, before a change actually takes place. This is a good thing. It helps protect citizens from abusive/terrible politicians doing bad things. A la, We don't have to wait out the restof Davis' term and continually hear him and other Democrats claim the only way to solve the overspending problem is to raise taxes.

How can anyone justify raising taxes when the California government is wasting huge amounts of cash on projects like the
$801Million IBM deal with California. It's a fricking Database. I can maybe see them spending $20million TOPS. This is a clear case of rampant overspending for a "solution".

As far as Bush is concerned, he is no different then any Democrat. Tax and spend, Tax and spend.
The whole prescription drug bill/tax increase proved that, and if that isn't enough evidence, how about the Department of Homeland defense. That is Big government, getting bigger. It's a far cry from "smaller government, and less taxes" that the idiot Republicans like to claim.
Republicans = Democrats.

I worked as a contractor for EBS in Portland in 2000. at the time, the hectic schedules, rotating management and failed deadlines seemed like normal american business procedures. one of my main concerns was all the $$$$$$ enron was dumping in brand new equipment and man power. i heard the sun contractors get $300/hr, so if you talked to them for 15 minutes while getting a friday bagel, you just cost enron $250. :)

Looking back on it now, the broadband scam is crystal clear. everything we did was smoke and mirrors, the biggest trick was fooling the employees into thinking that they were getting something done. And boy were we fooled, the exaggerated salaries, free cell phones, PDA's, laptops, hi-powered sun workstations, etc.

Q:Who would complain about that?

A:no one.

we all slowly got laid off or quit. the internet bubble had burst and the $1 billion that went into EBS was gone. The few broadcasted events we did were done on a lick and a promise, after blockbuster and msn bailed on our biggest contracts, we have cards left in our deck. RIP EBS.

HSD official obtained Ph.D. from diploma mill

A high-ranking career official in the Homeland Security Department apparently obtained her doctorate from a Wyoming diploma mill.

Laura L. Callahan, now senior director in the office of department CIO Steven Cooper, states on her professional biography that she "holds a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from Hamilton University." Callahan, who is also president of the Association for Federal IRM and a member of the CIO Council, is commonly called by the title "Dr."

Callahan's resume says she began her civil service career in 1984. Before joining HSD, she was deputy CIO at the Labor Department.

Hamilton University, according to an Internet search, is located in Evanston, Wyo. It is affiliated with and supported by Faith in the Order of Nature Fellowship Church, also in Evanston. The state of Wyoming does not license Hamilton because it claims a religious exemption. Oregon has identified Hamilton University as a diploma mill unaccredited by any organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

[...]

after all, it was running Linux.

I think the next major advance will be fully remote fighter jets.

You mean Like This?

Applelinks had a preview a few months ago, and it's worth noting the differences between that review's projected features and the ones revealed in today's review.

But even more important than that is to remember that this Office suite isn't only aimed at Linux. It's also aimed squarely at the MacOSX crowd, which could help expand its market penetration. (Businesses that are slow to adopt Linux on the desktop are often less tentative about permitting MacOSX installations.)

The unpopular expansion of the H1-B program has caused massive dislocation in the tech industry with little popular debate.

Over 80% of the American public opposed expansion of the H1-B program. Still, the program was expanded last year, in the middle of a tech recession. White House sources available to this correspondent indicate that there is starting to be considerable dissent among personnel in the Bush administration on whether the expansion of the H1-B program should be continued. Bush has been a strong supporter of the H1-B program(McCain and Gore also supported the H1-B program- Leiberman was unusual in that he was one of four senators that abstained from or opposed the major Senate vote around H1-B expansion).

The unpopular expansion of the H1-B program has caused massive dislocation in the tech industry with little popular debate.

Over 80% of the American public opposed expansion of the H1-B program. Still, the program was expanded last year, in the middle of a tech recession. White House sources available to this correspondent indicate that there is starting to be considerable dissent among personnel in the Bush administration on whether the expansion of the H1-B program should be continued. Bush has been a strong supporter of the H1-B program(McCain and Gore also supported the H1-B program- Leiberman was unusual in that he was one of four senators that abstained from or opposed the major Senate vote around H1-B expansion).

Hack the Vote? Not in Broward

By William Welsh,
Staff Writer

Officials in Florida's Broward County were scrambling Aug. 17 to put to rest a rumor that the county would allow high school students to try to breach the security of election computers in a mock election.

The idea surfaced at a meeting of the Broward County Commission Aug. 16, in which County Commission Chairman John Rodstrom suggested that computer savvy kids might get to hack their way into the election system, reported the Associated Press.

"That is not going to happen," Bob Cantrell, director of intergovernmental affairs for the Broward Supervisor of Elections, told Washington Technology.

In my hometown of Huntsville, AL the local-boys-made-good company of Intergraph (noted for their innovative CAD/CAM terminals 10 years ago) tried to get out of hardware and focus on software to cut losses but it didn't help. They've lost over a quarter billion dollars in the last five years and haven't had a profitable year since 1992. They're still saying they'll be profitable someday... Good luck Compaq - it was nice knowing you....