On May 20, 2013 the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the third company to become FedRAMP certified as Amazon Web Services. As part of the program, Amazon has been granted two Agency Authorities to Operate (ATOs) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CGI Federal and Autonomic Resources are the other two FedRAMP-certified providers.

The upcoming government furloughs will put many hard-working employees out of work. In his letter to OPM director John Berry, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposes to eliminate employees that aren’t doing jobs necessary to their agency’s mission. This would cut out any employees who are considered AWOL, non-mission critical, on standby, or are waiting for their security clearances. From 2001 to 2007, the employees that were AWOL from 18 agencies, missed 19.6 million hours. Employees who perform work unrelated to their agencies missions accounted for $155 million for their 3.4 million hours of work. Coburn also wrote that some 1,800 employees on standby received about $13 million between 2010 and 2011. On top of all this, around 20% of government contractors received a salary while they were waiting for their security clearances. These contractors could cost the government as much as $1.8 billion a month, while they were not doing the work stated in their contracts. Coburn believes that if these areas are focused on for the job cuts, then the employees performing critical jobs will be protected.

Yesterday, March 28th, the draft RFP’s for OASIS were released for public review and comment. Furthermore, on the OASIS Industry Community board it was stated that the General Services Administration (GSA) is tentatively planning an industry day on May 13th.

In recent years, government agencies have been required to reduce costs and cut back on spending. There are many ways to accomplish this, such as increasing employee efficiency which saves both time and tax dollars. Increasing collaboration and communication among employees is imperative for all agencies in the US to enhance employee satisfaction and improve efficiency. This not only leads to long-term benefits of the employees, but also increases transparency for citizens and supports their mission of serving the public.

As we dive deeper into the year 2013, we see now more than ever the workforce’s reliance on mobile devices. It has reached a scale so great that according to multiple technology research firms, before the end of this year, mobile devices will overtake personal computers as the most common tool to access the web.