House passes Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) in Defense Authorization: On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the FY 2014 Defense Authorization bill, adding Rep. Issa’s (R-CA) federal IT reform legislation to the bill. The revised version of the bill increases the authority of agency CIOs, promotes increased training of the IT acquisition workforce and expands efforts to optimize the data center infrastructure. The bill now moves to the Senate, where the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over federal IT but the issue will have to be address jointly by HSGAC and the Senate Armed Services Committee since the language is now part of the must-pass Defense bill. See SIIA’s full statement here.
Dell launches government cloud: Last week, IT and services company Dell launched Dell Cloud for the U.S. Government, a targeted effort offering federal agencies on premise, dedicated and private clouds as well as multi-tenant options. The cloud environment was designed specifically to comply with FedRAMP and NIST 800-53 and the company plans to submit its solution to the FedRAMP certification process in the near future. Read more from GCN.
GSA upholds IBM protest of Amazon, CIA cloud deal: Earlier this year, the CIA picked Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a private cloud for the CIA, NSA and the rest of the intelligence community to help them better analyze data and other information. The award, worth approximately $600 million over 5 years was protested by IBM and upheld in part by GSA on June 6th. In upholding the IBM protest, GSA pointed to comparability of the CIA’s evaluation of prices and that the CIA materially relaxed a solicitation term in post-award negotiations. IBM’s bid of about $94 million a year was $54 million less than AWS’s $148 million annually but the source selection authority felt the price difference was offset by AWS’s technical capability. It is unclear at this stage how this process will go forward. FCW has an inside look.
DHS to host webinar on the next generation IT: On June 26, 2013, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate will host a webinar designed to bring private industry up-to-date on the future IT needs of TSA, including what kinds of cutting-edge IT, intelligence, electronic explosives detection and other security equipment DHS is going to need to safeguard aircraft and airports in the future. Webinar attendees should register by June 19th. Interested parties can register and see the FedBizOpps notice here.
Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.