gsa

Oracle to pay $46 million to settle Sun kickback charges

Oracle, Sun's new parent, is paying out $46 million over kickback allegations that got Sun in a bit of trouble.

Levied by the U.S. government, the fine will settle claims that Sun Microsystems had paid kickbacks to technology partners such as Accenture in return for recommendations that key government agencies buy from Sun. Sun allegedly paid outside consulting companies any time one of them convinced a federal agency to purchase a Sun product or service, the Department of Justice announced yesterday.

Beyond Sun, several other tech players were caught up in the kickback allegations, including Hewlett-Packard, which was … Read more

Google scores big federal government contract

Google has won a major contract to provide Google Apps for an entire federal government agency.

Teaming up with Unisys and two other companies, Google will deploy Google Apps for Government to all 17,000 employees and contractors at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA handles business for the entire federal government by providing real estate and building management services along with buying assistance to other agencies, according to a Google blog post.

Awarding the $6.7 million contract to Google and its partners, the GSA becomes the first federal agency to migrate all its e-mail to the cloud, … Read more

Feds get new tool for online public feedback

The U.S. General Services Administration announced on Tuesday a new tool designed to help federal departments and agencies solicit ideas from the public as mandated by the Obama Administration's recent Open Government Directive.

The tool, which will be made available free of charge to any federal department or agency, will allow members of the public to submit ideas and vote or comment on others' ideas. The tools will go live on the Web site of each participating agency or department on February 6, and will be active for five weeks.

The hope, at least among participating departments and … Read more

Trial limitation hampers performance

GSA Cleandrive is a privacy tool that promises to rid your computer of harmful spyware and browsing traces. But thanks to its restrictive trial limitation, it failed to clean any of the problems it found on our PC.

The user interface is very straightforward and easy to navigate. You can view the overall status of your computer's privacy, and a one-click button lets you clean your system in one fell swoop. If you want a little more control over the scanning process, a custom cleanup button lets you decide which areas of your computer that you want to clean. … Read more