GSA Releases RFI for Privatization of 3PAO Accreditation Process: This week, as announced at SIIA CloudGOV conference last week, GSA released an RFI seeking industry input on how to privatize the accreditation process for the FedRAMP 3rd Party Assessment Organizations. The idea behind this is to take some of the burden off GSA while adding bandwidth to the FedRAMP 3PAO stable, with the hope of moving more cloud service providers through the process more quickly. To date there have been 16 3PAOs certified and two companies who have received their provisional authorization through the FedRAMP program. Questions on the RFI are due February 26th and responses due by 5:00pm on March 8th. See the RFI on FedBizOpps.
Congress to Hold Hearing on IT Acquisition Reform: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled a full committee hearing for next week to dig deeper into Chairman Issa’s draft IT acquisition reform bill known as FITARA. The hearing is currently scheduled for 9:30am on February 27th. Witnesses have not been publicly announced but the notice of the hearing can be accessed here
Cloud Computing Driving New Generation of Startups: According to a recent survey of 1300 executives in the US and UK conducted by Rackspace, cloud computing is driving more than cost reduction and innovation. The report highlights that 62 percent of survey respondents believe that cloud computing is responsible for the recent boom in entrepreneurs and startups with 25 percent strongly agreeing with that idea. Forbes has the full report.
Sequestration Looms Large with DC Area to Take Big Hit: According to figures released earlier this week, the looming sequester may have a big financial impact on the Defense Department and other federal agencies, as they will likely be forced to shorten the work week, reduce services or temporarily lay off employees. DC, Maryland and Virginia with a large population of federal employees and contractors, along with California are expected to take the biggest hit. DC/MD/VA may face an estimated DOD payroll cut impact of $1.2B. Federal News Radio has a story with a link to the Pentagon’s payroll numbers
Texas Moves to the Cloud: States continue to make progress moving applications into the cloud, with Texas being the latest to make headlines by announcing this week that they will move more than 100,000 state employees to Microsoft’s Office 365 Cloud. The contract will provide the state compliance with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security standards, and is estimated to save the state some 75% over prior years. Government Technology has a full report.
Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.