Wanted: Graduates of Bill Gates U.
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       |  | | | Vendors should salivate at the fed's newest offering - a one-stop shop for doing business with any agency of the U.S. government through Electronic Data Interchange and non-EDI. Busily gathering more than 300,000 company names in their be-all, end-all database, the Defense Logistics Services Center is compiling the so-called Central Contractor Registration or CCR (see http://www.dlsc.dla.mil/ccr/). The site could well become a major artery on the information highway. Scheduled for completion by Jan. 1, 1999, the CCR is likely to serve as a boon for small and minority-owned businesses, which stand to gain from the new registration process. In the past, larger contractors enjoyed an advantage with representation at different contract administration offices. Now, small businesses can gain bid access to federal contract availability without needing to register at each local procurement office. For Terrence Hunt, Defense Logistics Service Center program manager, the CCR also allows small and minority-owned businesses the chance to profile themselves worldwide. After contractors are identified in the CCR, bidding and awarding of contracts should also be faster. Bidders can make offers electronically through a single access point for any open Department of Defense solicitation. Government officials hope that the CCR will help avoid repetitive registrations, allow the creation of accurate business profiles and provide banking information to enable contractor payment through Electronic Funds Transfer .
LCC Lands New President, CEO Geoffrey Carroll, most recently CEO of Origin B.V. in Brussels, Belgium, will be the new president and CEO of LCC and also will serve on the board of directors, LCC announced Jan. 20. Origin is a $2 billion information technology services company, owned by Philips N.V., a European electronics manufacturer. LCC's current president and CEO, Piyush Sodha, announced unexpectedly Jan. 8 that he is leaving LCC after seven years with the company to head up Bermuda-based Global Crossings International, an undersea fiber optics company.
Women ENTERING Computing DOWN The data show that the percentage of computer science graduates who were women dropped from a peak of 37.1 percent in 1984 to 28.4 percent in 1995, said Denise Gurer, a computer scientist at Meno Park, Calif.-based SRI International, who chairs the New York-based ACM's Committee on Women in Computing. The government should reverse this trend by promoting science education for women and the development of woman-friendly workplaces, she said. This would help women enter this promising field and help alleviate the shortage of skilled workers, she said.
Microsoft, Cisco, MCI Showcase Computer-Telephony integration The trade show will showcase the latest developments in CTI technology, which is a way to use a common network for traditional telephone and data transmissions. The estimated $5 billion market for this technology is expected to swell to $7.9 billion by the year 2000, industry officials said. Executives in traditional voice, desktop, infrastructure and Internet market segments will discuss the future of telephony and how it will create growth opportunities for suppliers and resellers. The role of CTI in global markets and how organizations can create and manage world-class call centers also will be discussed.
SEC Increases Year 2000 Disclosure Enforcement Information the agency wants are anticipated costs, problems and "uncertainties" associated with the year 2000. "If a company does not successfully address its year 2000 issues, it may face material adverse consequences," the SEC bulletin said. Staff Legal Bulletin No. 5 also has recommendations on what investment companies and investment advisers should disclose. For more information, check out the agency's World Wide Web page at http://www.sec.gov/news/home2000.htm.
Plosila Joins Battelle Technology Group Plosila's group will target as clients government agencies looking to commercialize their technology, state governments seeking technology-based economic growth and research institutions looking to license and sell their technology.
OS/2 Grasps for Java To save OS/2 from disappearance, OS/2 vendor Innoval Systems Solutions is now calling on all good OS/2 fans to join the Java lobby, whose avowed goal is to promote Java as an alternative to Microsoft's Windows and NT software. Based in Harrison, N.Y., Innoval has already developed a 100 percent Java product called J Street Mailer that runs with OS/2.
In a call to action, the chairman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council tells members of Congress that a study projects a 26 percent increase in the number of new high-tech jobs that will be created in Northern Virginia. The Williamsburg, Va.-based College of William & Mary's Bureau of Business Research forecasts 256,000 new jobs will be created in Northern Virginia over the next 10 years, Mike Daniels, vice president of the technology applications sector for Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, said last week. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, he said that the growth in the technology industry over the past five years is just the beginning. Daniels' aim is to spur Congress and the White House to deal with the worker shortage on a national level, combining the efforts of state and local governments and school systems. He wants to see technology in all school curricula, computer literacy of all graduates and increased grants and scholarship programs.
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