In an important move aimed at advancing the Defense Department’s use of commercially-available mobile devices and services, the Defense Information System Agency announced it is seeking proposals to provide the U.S. Military with mobile device management capabilities and a dedicated mobile application store.
The announcement took the form of a request for proposals (RFP) posted to the federal government procurement website, FedBizOpps.gov. Keep reading →
UPDATED with additional data. The federal government’s ongoing budget woes will result in flat-lined technology budgets over the next five years, forcing agencies to move aggressively away from outdated technologies to make the most of limited budgets, a new report by the TechAmerica Foundation predicted.
Compounding the challenge for agencies is Congressional gridlock over the budget and the looming possibility of sequestration which is hitting the government in the middle of an ambitious technology transformation program, said TechAmerica analyst Robert Haas.
The combination of uncertainty and lack of funds is causing agencies to reassess how they manage older systems and acquire new technologies, he said.
All of that is set against a backdrop of broader uncertainty of how Congress will address the so-called fiscal cliff, involving the expiration of tax breaks and forced budget cuts due to trigger in the new year. Unless Congress takes other steps, the Budget Control Act would force automatic cuts of an estimated $1.2 trillion in federal spending spread evenly over a nine year period beginning in 2013.
Many agencies, as a consequence, are pursuing a strategy of shifting existing funds into new systems and away from older systems. This leads to what Haas referred to as “creative destruction” or the withering of older systems in favor of the new.
Spending in the federal IT market will remain relatively flat through 2018, Haas said. The 2013 budget allocates $73.5 billion for IT projects, with a slight rise to $77.2 billion projected for 2018. But inflation will erode the real value of that spending he said, reducing the effective value of the 2018 funding in constant dollars to about $70.2 billion.
Civilian government IT spending for 2013 will be $40.8 billion and raise slightly to $43.5 billion in 2018. Because of the flat budgets, federal agencies are becoming more aggressive in shifting resources away from legacy systems to newer equipment and software, Haas said.
After a series of funding cuts in recent years, the Defense Department IT budget will remain stable for the next five years, Haas said. The 2013 Defense IT budget is $32.7 billion and is predicted to remain steady at $33.7 billion in 2018.
Sequestration, however, would have an overwhelming impact on defense operations, requiring $52.3 billion in DoD reductions in fiscal year 2013, affecting readiness, training, civilian personnel, military families, services and support, all of which would seriously affect DoD technology investments.
Over the next five years, the DOD will focus on integrating its IT infrastructure by merging telecommunications, satellite communications, networks, wireless systems and computers into a single architecture. Part of this activity includes ongoing efforts to consolidate data centers and move to a cloud computing environment, Haas said.
The Federal IT forecasts are part of new report being released at a conference Oct. 17 that provides detailed predictions of future information technology spending for all major civilian and defense agencies as well as the General Services Administration. It also provides an outlook of IDIQ contract vehicles and other acquisition trends.The report outlines five possible scenarios of how Congress might tackle the looming Budget Control Act cuts, summarized in the following slides:
Charts courtesy of TechAmerica Foundation.
This feature showcases one video each Friday that captures the essence of innovation, technology and new ideas happening in government today.
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, Commander of US Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency addressed a standing room only crowd at the just-concluded 2012 GEOINT Symposium Oct. 11. The symposium is the nation’s largest intelligence event of the year. Keep reading →
Sometime in the near future, the military may begin using tiny, dissolvable electronic devices to help wounded soldiers to fight off infection. The technology opens potentials beyond the battlefield, allowing wider use of sensors and a variety of short-term medical applications as well as providing new ways to fight infection in existing surgical implants.
Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Department’s research and development shop, these “transient” electronic devices are designed to dissolve when exposed to water and can last for weeks, days or even minutes. The electronic components are made of superthin sheets of silicon and magnesium sheathed in silk. Silk is biocompatible, which means that it can be inserted safely into the body. How long a device lasts is determined by the thickness and crystalinity of the silk. Keep reading →
The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to kick down a lot of existing security boundaries so that commanders can work together efficiently without having their email, video and text messaging hung up in a thicket of contradictory security requirements. But increasing access to classified command networks calls for some tradeoffs between security and utility, Anthony Montemarano, DISA’s director for strategic planning said in an interview this week.
To meet its goals and protect military networks, DISA, is working with Cyber Command to share information and develop tactics and policies to respond quickly to cyber attacks. The agency is also working closely with the NSA on security technologies such as encryption for mobile devices, Montemarano said. Keep reading →
Dr. Barclay Butler, Director, DOD/VA Interagency Program Office
Since rebooting efforts nearly a year ago to merge their electronic health care management and record keeping systems, the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs have made what top officials described as considerable progress after the program was in danger of slipping its schedule. Keep reading →
The Army’s migration to an enterprise-wide email system, after years of false starts and execution detours, is gaining significant momentum and appears on track to hit the 1.4 million user mark by March 31, Army program officials told AOL Government.
While enterprise email and communications systems are taken for granted at most organizations, Army soldiers and civilians – and most military personnel – have had to get by without the convenience of having a single globally-accessible email account, capable of communicating sensitive information securely anywhere in the world. Keep reading →
The scrutiny over what federal employees spend to attend work-related conferences has continued to escalate after a recent salvo of letters to the secretaries of the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services and other agencies.
The letters, from Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs, ask for a detailed accounting of travel spending in connection with 150 conferences. After analyzing “thousands of documents,” the committee concluded that the General Services Administration was hardly alone when, in 2010, it permitted employees to spend an average of $600 per day per employee to attend an over-the-top regional training conference in Las Vegas. Keep reading →
Sequestration would force the Defense Department and other federal agencies to lay off workers long before the defense industry had to, said a report released today by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Though big defense contractors, led by Lockheed Martin, have warned that the threat of sequestration might require them to send layoff notices to tens of thousands of employees just before the November elections, CSBA’s Todd Harrison said the effects of sequestration on defense companies would be delayed for months or years. Keep reading →
Turns out, paying back student loans can result in more and better candidates for job openings within the federal workforce and better retention and satisfaction once they’re hired.
As the No. 1 federal department in helping employees pay back their student loans, the Department of Defense cities the program designed for doing so as a major factor in recruiting and retaining civilian personnel. Keep reading →