Industry
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Nearly all of the Defense Department's civilians are now working, despite the government shutdown. Many members of Congress believe none of those civilians should have been furloughed to begin with. DoD remains unsure how to address contractors under the Pay Our Military Act.
October 11, 2013 -
Government contractors have not been immune from the effects of the shutdown. From a flurry of stop-work orders to a heightened — some say "cutthroat" — sense of competition in contracts that have, so far, been unaffected by the shutdown. Top experts from the procurement realm address some of the effects and challenges of the shutdown.
October 10, 2013 -
DoD's Health Management Systems Modernization Program seeks input from vendors on the current capabilities of electronic health records in the commercial market. The Defense Intelligence Agency issued a draft request for proposals in late September for the multiple-award Enhanced Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise (E-SITE) contract, which could be worth $6 billion.
October 09, 2013 -
In an interim final rule issued last week in the Federal Register, VA announced it would not cede the control of deciding on socio-economic status protests to the Small Business Administration. VA moved the decision authority to the director of the Center for Veterans Enterprise instead of the director of the Office of Small and Disadvantage Business Utilization (OSDBU).
October 07, 2013 -
With the announcement from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recalling most Defense Department civilians from furloughs, some large defense companies, which had been planning to furlough their employees, have canceled or scaled back their initial plans. However, DoD's move could wind up having only a limited impact on contractors more broadly.
October 07, 2013 -
The Homeland Security Department chose 15 large businesses to provide technology development, implementation and maintenance services under the EAGLE II multiple award contract.
September 30, 2013 -
Budget cuts and bad publicity have combined to put the kibosh on both the number of government conferences scheduled this year and the number of employees and contractors attending them, according to a new poll from Market Connections, Inc. and Boscobel Marketing Communications. Among federal employees, nearly 72 percent of survey respondents said they have attended fewer events in fiscal 2013 than they did last year.
September 24, 2013 -
Aljucar, Anvil-Incus & Co. has now filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office a week after losing its agency-level protest over what the company says restricts competition in the professional services governmentwide contract.
September 23, 2013 -
Agency protest official ruled that the protester, Aljucar, Anvil-Incus, Inc., failed to show the restriction over joint ventures was unreasonable. Aljucar, Anvil-Incus, Inc. plans to file another protest with GAO in the coming weeks.
September 16, 2013 -
After three years and multiple protests, the contract for the second generation e-travel system finally is decided. GSA awards CWTSato to compete with Concur Technologies to provide a travel management system to agencies.
September 13, 2013 -
Federal spending on services contracts continued a slow downturn last year, according to a new analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Contract spending on services fell 7 percent -- from $332 billion to $308 billion — between 2011 and 2012. And the downward trend is likely to continue, given budget constraints that are likely to intensify in the coming years, according to David Berteau, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
September 05, 2013 -
Like everything else, the Pentagon expects to cut procurement and research spending under a second year of sequestration. But DoD's acquisition chief said modernization programs will be a bill-payer for other areas of spending that are harder to reduce quickly.
September 05, 2013 -
The Postal Service hired AT&T under two contracts worth a combined $53.5 million to improve the bandwidth and cybersecurity of back-end infrastructure. AT&T will provide MTIPS under the Trusted Internet Connections initiative.
September 03, 2013 -
New regulations from the Labor Department spell out specific benchmarks federal contractors will be expected to meet regarding the hiring of veterans and people with disabilities. But Patricia Shiu, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), tells Federal News Radio the new benchmarks are not quotas. Still, some contractor groups are viewing the new rules with skepticism.
September 02, 2013 -
CEO Steve Ballmer's exit from Microsoft feels like an end of the PC revolution era, Tom Temin writes. Though investors and a good many insiders feel it's past time for new leadership for Microsoft, don't shed a tear for Ballmer. Many of the tech rock stars of prior generations have moved on and made way for Apple, Google and Amazon.
August 28, 2013