Government Contracting Blog

Did you miss our webinar last week on the upcoming changes to the Professional Services GSA Schedules? You can now download a free copy of this presentation.

In the IT world, challenges always exist, whether we can currently identify the challenge or not, one will always arise. Rest assured, when an IT challenge becomes apparent, there is also usually a solution in existence. Often enough it’s the problem solving techniques that reach the end of the challenge, and delineates the solution.

In a world where the industry standard is always changing and methods for these changes are conjointly working together, one can’t help but feel like they’re always falling behind the curve. Welcome to the world of Information Technology (IT), where changes typically come in 12 to 15 month increments and the last 10 years has been one of the greatest technology booms in the last century. Over the last decade, IT businesses and users have seen innovations of all sorts of technologies such as the iPod, new Operating Systems, and massive changes in IT management. For example, as Microsoft Windows ends support for Windows XP this April, organizations will find themselves migrating and attempting to the stay ahead of IT to continue their business operations. At this point, you may be asking “How can I stay ahead of all these IT changes and learn about what challenges all these different technologies can solve?” In a World Where IT is Always Changing, How Can we Keep Up? The answer arrived with a benchmark idea called information exchange. Information exchange is loosely defined as “a bidirectional information transfer” in related topics such as telecommunications, computer science (IT) and other communication systems. You can find this exchange and sharing of ideas occurs between IT leaders at conferences and events around the world. This avenue of communication allows IT specialists to return to their coworkers and peers with greater knowledge of the leading IT innovations and transformations. Every year, new IT discoveries are released with new models and advancements for the future. IT specialists gather and attend conferences to share their insights and learn about the ever-changing advancements that require their understanding to stay ahead. These idea exchanging events continue to improve and provide vast benefits to attendees, but not just to simply discuss new technological advancements, but to reach the core of IT and how to enable IT in the most effective manner. A focus area that is becoming more prominent to the IT and business industries today is the emergence of IT Service and Asset Management (ITSM/ITAM). A very valuable event that addresses this core component of IT is the BMC Exchange. This event gathers in various locations around the world to encourage and promote information exchange and idea sharing with leading IT organizations and leaders. The next upcoming BMC Exchange is the BMC DC Exchange being held in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Attending the BMC DC Exchange on February 20th at the Ritz Carlton Pentagon City will be a great resource for learning about how ITSM and ITAM are changing the surface of the IT world. Among the many distinguished speakers there, James Staten from Forrester Research will be discussing the transformations of IT in his keynote. Attendees will also connect with IT leaders and share IT ideas to learn how properly enabling IT can provide the best means for effective business growth.

The U.S. government shutdown this past October has been one of the most damaging elements in the growth of business for GSA Contractors. The shutdown has taken a toll of $24 billion out of the economy and also reduced a projected fourth-quarter GDP from 3 percent to 2.4 percent.

Having trouble with Windows XP? Always having troubleshooting problems and need help adjusting and migrating to the update? This April, Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP, and as a result, government agencies are quickly migrating to Windows 7.

In the wake of the Open Government Directive issued by President Obama in December of 2009, agencies have been working to take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration. However, do we want our National Security Agency (NSA) being transparent about all of their defense tactics and cyber plans?