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XXXSPLITXXX-The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service awarded a string of Metropolitan Area Acquisition contracts the last week of March for the regions surrounding Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Los Angeles.Winstar was awarded the Baltimore MAA by the GSA March 28. The GSA March 24 selected four companies to serve Cleveland and Los Angeles. Ameritech Corp. of Chicago and AT&T Corp. of Basking Ridge, N.J., will provide service to Cleveland. Winstar Communications Inc. of New York, and Pacific Bell of San Francisco will serve the Los Angeles area. Both Ameritech and Pacific Bell are subsidiaries of San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc. Winstar also was selected March 23 to serve the Cincinnati area. Total value of the government business for all four cities is estimated at $770 million: Baltimore at $320 million, Los Angeles at $200 million, Cleveland at $150 million and Cincinnati $100 million. Each of the contracts will span eight years ? four base years plus four one-year options ? with the MAA contract providing local telecommunications, voice, data and dedicated transmission services to federal agencies.The GSA said it hopes to enhance competition via the MAA contracts so that the federal government receives prices and services that are competitive with the industry as a whole. The total number of MAA cities is up to eight. Three initial MAA awards were made in May 1999 to AT&T for Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Bell Atlantic won the Buffalo MAA in February.XXXSPLITXXX-The competition for the $10 billion Navy-Marine Corps Intranet contract has passed into the due diligence phase with all four companies still hotly competing for the lucrative contract.Some industry officials had expected the Navy to pare down from four contractors to two, but the pricing offered by the four companies were all within competitive range of each other, an industry source said.Teeing off against each other for the contract are teams led by Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Plano, Texas, General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church, Va., and IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y.The winning contractor will be responsible for secure voice, video and data networking, desktop computers, hardware, software, services and training for more than 400,000 users. The contract is expected to be awarded around May 24.XXXSPLITXXX-The Carlyle Group has made a $20 million investment in Imagitas, a Newton Upper Falls, Mass., company that offers electronic commerce services to government agencies. The investment from Carlyle will help Imagitas bring new products and services to market more quickly, company officials said.A private investment group, Carlyle of Washington has made several investments in government-related companies. Imagitas provides government agencies with online marketing services that connect citizens with agencies. Its biggest customer is the U.S. Postal Service."We believe our novel approach to facilitating effective communications between citizens and their government can be dramatically enhanced by using the newest tools of electronic commerce," said Imagitas Chief Executive Brett Matthews.XXXSPLITXXX-Political leaders should become more involved in guiding information technology policies rather than turn over key IT decisions to their technical staff, according to a new report by the Harvard Policy Group at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University."Policymaking on information technology, historically delegated to technologists, is now so central to the work of government that it requires the attention of political leaders," said Jerry Mechling, director of the report and a professor at the Kennedy School.The report, called "Eight Imperatives for Leaders in a Networked World," lays out important steps for taking advantage of new technologies.The report recommends that political leaders use IT for strategic innovation and not just automating processes, develop IT-related partnerships with the private sector, make privacy and security a priority and develop best practices for implementing IT initiatives.Policymakers also should use IT to promote equal opportunity, create a digital democracy and analyze economic and budget trends to identify new shared-risk investments with the private sector.The Harvard Policy Group is sponsored through a partnership among the Kennedy School, American Management Systems Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and IBM Corp.'s Institute for Electronic Government.XXXSPLITXXX-USinternetworking Inc. of Annapolis, Md., will be using the General Services Administration schedule to bring its application services provider model to the federal government.Known as ASP, the business model allows agencies to pay a flat monthly fee for the use of applications such as human resources, financial services and supply chain management.The advantage for the government is that the agencies do not have to buy, build and manage the software applications, USinternetworking officials said.USinternetworking is partnering with Computer Marketing Associates Inc., a Vienna, Va., marketing and contracts services company to bring the services to the government."The ASP model allows federal clients to really get ahead of the technology curve," said Joe Corini, president of Computer Marketing Associates.XXXSPLITXXX-Digital Commerce Corp., a developer and provider of e-commerce solutions for the business-to-government market, has added nearly $51 million in new investment capital, bringing the company's total investment capital to $78 million as of March 27.The funds will be used to expand sales and marketing activities, to enhance product offerings and for working capital, according to company officials. "This round of financing will allow us to build brand awareness, accelerate our marketing strategy and grow our business to the next level," said Tony Bansal, president and CEO of Reston, Va.-based Digital Commerce.Investors in the latest financing include Weston Presidio Capital, Highland Capital Partners, SAP Investments, Sentinel Capital Partners and RRE Ventures. Digital Commerce helps government purchasers reach the vendors authorized to sell products and services to governments in a cost-effective manner. XXXSPLITXXX-SAP Americas Inc. is forming an alliance with Digital Commerce Corp. of Reston, Va., to create electronic business applications for government.The deal calls for the public-sector division of the Newtown Square, Pa.-based SAP to make an equity investment in Digital. The size of the investment has not been disclosed.As part of the alliance, Digital has agreed to run its internal operations with SAP software.Digital operates government procurement portals such as FedCenter.com and StateGovCenter.com. SAP is a maker of the back-office enterprise resource planning software.XXXSPLITXXX-American Management Systems Inc. and govWorks Inc. have formed a strategic partnership to provide consumers and businesses with broader access to state and local government services.The agreement will enable AMS and govWorks to offer a complete set of end-to-end Internet solutions and will help consumers and businesses conduct transactions with governments online through a seamless, integrated electronic transfer of funds and information, company officials said.The Fairfax, Va.-based AMS is one of the leading systems integrators in the state and local government arena. The New York-based govWorks is an e-government portal in both the United States and Latin America, and provides Internet-based services that enhance governments' interactions with their constituents.AMS and govWorks will begin their focus on state and local governments in areas with populations greater than 100,000, including the more than 300 existing AMS public-sector clients.