With sequestration looming just over the horizon, IT companies are competing now more than ever for contracting opportunities. The anticipated funding cuts, which are set to take place in January 2013, have many contractors panicking. As a result, we suggest the following tips: “1) Making the most of stretched 2012 opportunities; 2) Determining what’s possible under 2013 plans; and 3) finding out what carries into 2014 coupled with brand new initiatives in the upcoming 2014 budget request.” (http://washingtontechnology.com) IT contractors should also have an “understanding [of] how the internal budget plumbing works as agencies map expenditures to the spending authority granted by Congress.” Thus, it is important to not “overlook crosscutting management initiatives that can pull money from multiple program buckets, including across agencies, even under a continuing resolution.”

It appears once again that the 20/20 vision of hindsight has made its presence felt.

It is no mystery cloud migration has captured the attention of government agencies and government contractors the past several years. Agencies are required to find new innovative ways to save resources, be more efficient, and maintain security standards and are at very different stages in their development towards a mature IT portfolio and cloud environment. One of the biggest challenges facing agencies today is how to migrate legacy systems and documents to cloud infrastructure and ensure they are retrievable.

A proposal by Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, seeks to eliminate the kind of governmental waste both of the Presidential candidates have pledged to eliminate. Backed by the ranking member of the IT subcommittee, Rep. Gerry Connolly, the proposal plans to save about $20 billion that is currently wasted supporting outdated technology by giving CIO’s of Federal agencies more authority with their IT programs and encouraging collective government IT procurement. Critics of the proposal note its limited scope and claim it would create more bureaucracy. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a conspicuous absence from the proposal even though it accounts for roughly half of the government’s $80 billion annual IT budget and is a major source of the waste the proposed law strives to eliminate. While the scope of the proposed law is not as expansive as some hoped, it has nonetheless received support from the private sector because it requires "active engagement with the private sector to use up-to-date commercial technologies and to remove unnecessary burdens on industry in its interactions with the government." Regardless of whether this proposal becomes law, it is an exciting step on the path to a more efficient and cost-effective commercial interaction between government agencies and the private sector. Wow! As if this time of year wasn’t already brimming with innovative ideas and exciting possibilities. This proposal is a great way for government agencies to save money by leaving expensive obsolete technologies behind to embrace the current tools of doing business. Businesses selling to the government will benefit from agencies improved ability to rely on each other’s expertise and collaborative purchasing. We are looking forward to see what happens when this proposal is introduced in early 2013. What do you think?

With both the Obama Administration and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) so steadfast on the implementation of the cloud, it is imperative that they subdue all doubts the general public may have about its security. FedRAMP has reached out to officials from General Services Administration (GSA), Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and others to standardize the security of government cloud-based services.

NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV is a government wide acquisition contract supporting IT investments spanning from 2007 to 2014. SEWP is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle and is coveted by many contractors as a gateway into large scale contracts and access into a plethora of agencies. SEWP is one of the few contract vehicles which actually manages the contracts and allows agencies to utilize resources from a centralized platform. A Federal Computer Week Report highlights some key features: